Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says he thinks the industry is moving towards PC gaming, even if consoles will probably never go away.
PC gaming has definitely had a surge of momentum over the past decade, with more and more moving to the platform as their main system as previously console-focused publishers like PlayStation, Konami, and Atlus have started releasing their games on PC. Not to mention, the major consoles – especially Xbox – are effectively PCs with custom UIs at this point, while handheld PCs like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally are also making a splash.
Speaking to CNBC, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says the industry is "moving towards PC and business is moving towards open rather than closed." However, even if the industry does move toward PC gaming, he doesn't think consoles will ever go away, adding: "If you define console as the property, not the system, then the notion of a very rich game that you engage in for many hours that you play on a big screen – that's never going away."
Of course, we are seeing the beginning of this somewhat with hardware like the Steam Machine and the aforementioned handheld PCs, where they do have their dedicated OS, but I can also pop onto a web browser and download an emulator for my game backups. And given how Xbox seems to be moving away from the traditional closed-console ecosystem, I wouldn't be shocked to see Microsoft's next system be like that.
Of course, there's a bit of cruel irony that Strauss Zelnick is saying this when what will likely be his company's biggest game of all time – GTA 6 – isn't coming to PC. Or at least, Rockstar Games hasn't confirmed that it is. It will likely come to PC later down the line based on Rockstar Games' previous releases (and presumably the amount of double-dips that release pattern brings), but if PC is really set to be the main platform going forward, let's hope Rockstar catches up and looks to bring its games to PC on day one going forward.
