Strauss Zelnick on GTA 6, BioShock, Take-Two's acquisition plans, and reviving

Take-Two Interactive reported the earnings for its second quarter today, and GamesIndustry.biz had a chance to talk with CEO Strauss Zelnick about the results, as well as where the company is headed.

Naturally, all eyes are on Grand Theft Auto 6 right now, the launch of which next week could be not only the biggest game launch of all time, but the biggest entertainment product launch of all time in terms of revenue. Pre-orders are currently at nearly 8 million, according to Sensor Tower.

But what are Take-Two's goals beyond GTA? What's happening with BioShock 4, which was announced back in 2019, but seems to have hit a stumbling block, with redundancies announced last year at developer Cloud Chamber? What about the live-service extraction shooter Project Ethos, which was first announced in 2024? What about new IP and reviving old franchises? And where does the firm see growth coming from in the future?

Here's what Zelnick had to say.

What are the things you're most excited about in this report?

We had a terrific quarter, obviously. We were at the low end of our net bookings range, but obviously in terms of profitability performance, we were very, very strong. We have an array of great releases. NBA 2K27 is the second most successful launch in the history of the NBA 2K franchise, and our pre-orders for GTA 6 outperformed our expectations. So we're feeling exceedingly positive for the rest of the year.

You said pre-orders outperformed your expectations. What were your expectations?

[We cannot] disclose the numbers, but the point that we're making is our prior expectations obviously were aligned with our guidance, and the pre-orders are far exceeding our original expectations. We're maintaining our guidance, because the release is only 10 days away and we'll know a lot more after the release.

Well, that was going to be my next question, because I noticed you kept your guidance at $8 billion for the year, so I'm presuming that you're not predicting a bigger than expected launch.

We're just not updating our numbers right now because we are so close to the launch. However, pre-orders are far exceeding our expectations.

I wanted to ask about a couple of other things mentioned in the report. I saw Bioshock is still in there. Can you give me an update on what's going on with that game?

It's still in development. We feel very good about how it's going.

It sounds like it's been through the ringer, though. There was a report in 2025 that there were around 80 redundancies and a change in leadership. Does that mean the game has been reset?

We definitely did face some development challenges. We feel like we're on the right track now, but you're correct, we did face some challenges along the way.

And what about Project Ethos? Again, that has been in development for a very long time. Will we be able to see that soon?

We did a public beta that was disappointing, and we made a bunch of changes. We think they've been very beneficial and feel exceedingly optimistic right now.

Well, I was going to ask, do you feel like the live service wave has passed now? I mean, we've already had quite a few high profile live service failures down the years. Do you think maybe the time for this game has passed?

We do not, although we've said all along that free-to-play titles are very challenging, whether that's in mobile or PC or console. But live service, I would say that's too broad a brush, because live services are extremely successful. The bulk of our business is represented by live services and what we call recurrent consumer spend. It's the vast majority of our business today.

Yes, I noticed that something like 81% of your net bookings come from recurrent consumer spending. Basically, your business runs on monetisation.

The business basically runs on live services, punctuated by, we hope, some huge releases.

I also wanted to pick up on something at the end of the report. You mentioned you're pursuing accretive mergers and acquisitions (M&A). I just wanted to ask what that means and what kind of companies you're planning to target.

Within interactive entertainment, we're always looking for accretive transactions that add new intellectual property, new technology, new talent, and new audiences to our company. The most recent large acquisition was Zynga, which has been accretive. And then more recently Gearbox, also an accretive deal for us. Accretive simply means that our EPS [earnings per share] goes up as opposed to down when we do the deal.

So the Zynga deal was a positive from the start?

It had its moments. We closed the deal in mid '22, and then the mobile business basically fell out of bed immediately thereafter. So undoubtedly we had major challenges in the company. Those have been addressed, but the deal was accretive from the get-go.

I'm interested in which areas you're targeting for M&A. Is there any particular area that you're looking at?

We haven't specifically said what particular companies we pursue. We generally don't talk about that. We simply announce deals when we've done them. But we're interested in all areas of interactive entertainment to the extent that they make sense for us.

You also mentioned in the report that you're anticipating growth. I'm wondering, aside from Grand Theft Auto 6, which obviously is going to be a big earner for you this year, where is that growth going to come from?

Really across the board. We have numerous hit franchises. In fact, a total of 15 that have each sold at least five million units in an individual release, plus an enormous, powerful, successful mobile business that was up 4% year over year in the quarter, and continues to perform, and is launching new hits all the time. So as a broad-based powerful business with what we believe is the best collection of owned intellectual property in the interactive entertainment business, there's plenty of opportunity for growth and success across the board.

Of course, but I would say that a lot of that strategy involves seasoned titles, releasing yearly updates. Are there any areas where you're looking for new games or new IP?

We're always looking for new IP. We selectively invest in new IP. New IP is the riskiest part of our business, but we only have the company we have today because we've been willing to invest in new IP over the years.

You mentioned you've got a huge range of IP. I wonder whether you plan to revive some of the older IP that 2K has accrued over the years? You've got so many studios under your belt and so many franchises.

We are working on some legacy franchises that we're excited about. And you're right, we own a bunch of IP that we have not exploited in recent years, and it's always possible that we will. It's on our to-do list.

It does seem to be a trend. I know EA re-released Wing Commander the other day. I guess it's easy money, isn't it? It's there on the table for you to take it.

There's no such thing as easy money in our business.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.