Rockstar owner discusses remaster strategy, says he’s not interested in ‘single ports’



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The CEO of Rockstar owner Take-Two discussed the company’s approach to remastering older titles and its efforts to differentiate itself from its competition in this area.

Rockstar is currently preparing to bring a remastered version of Grand Theft Auto V to PS5 and Xbox Series X / S in the second half of the 2021 schedule.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley tech, media and telecoms conference on Wednesday (transcribed by VGC), Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick was asked what he thought of the remasters likely to become a more important part of the company’s strategy going forward.

“I’m not sure there will be a bigger part of the strategy,” he replied. “Remastering has always been part of the strategy. We’ve done it differently from the competition – we don’t just carry the titles, we take the time to do the best job we can to make the title different for the new version, for the new technology that we’re launching it. sure.

Rockstar owner discusses remaster strategy, says he's not interested in 'single ports'
Grand Theft Auto V has shipped 140 million units

“So we improve the technology, we improve the visuals and we improve the performance. And that’s why I think our remastered titles generally work so well. “

On GTAV’s next next-gen console release, Zelnick said he’s confident the remaster will provide a solid experience for gamers.

“We did a good job with the Mafia series, for example, and Grand Theft Auto [V] is now heading into its third generation, which is amazing, he said.

“It was a standard bearer when it launched, it has continued to be the second generation standard bearer, we’ll see how Grand Theft Auto does in the next generation. Obviously, I have no doubts that Rockstar is going to provide a great experience, but you can’t do that if you just do a single port.

During Take-Two’s third quarter earnings call in February, Zelnick offered a non-binding response when asked about the potential for remastering old Grand Theft Auto games.

During a question-and-answer session, an analyst suggested that it was likely that a significant portion of GTAV players had never played previous games in the series. Given the huge appetite for Grand Theft Auto content, he asked for Take-Two’s perspective on other remasters.

“This is a great and encouraging question,” replied Zelnick. “I’m rather inclined to leave this more as a statement than a question and any update to our release schedule will come from Rockstar Games.”

Rockstar owner discusses remaster strategy, says he's not interested in 'single ports'
Mafia: Trilogy, a collection of remasters and a remake, released in May 2020

Zelnick rolled out that line again on Wednesday when asked at the Morgan Stanley conference if he could provide an update on the release of Grand Theft Auto 6.

“So Rockstar hasn’t announced any new titles for the market and when there is an announcement to make it will come from Rockstar, so I’m probably going to leave you there, and I don’t think you expected anything. different from me, ”he said.

Grand Theft Auto V has shipped over 140 million units, with the game selling more copies in 2020 than in any other year, with the exception of 2013 when it first released on PS3 and Xbox 360, according to Take- Two.