GTA publisher Take-Two says its games take so long to release because they're all bangers

Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption publisher Take-Two says it's a "hit factory" and that that's why its games take so long to come out.

In a recent call with investors (via PC Gamer), Take-Two Interactive was nudged about the timeline on what it calls its "immersive core" lineup of upcoming games. Immersive core is Take-Two speak for triple-A, essentially, or in the publisher's words, games with "the deepest gameplay and the most hours of content."

Supermassive's 2022 multiplayer horror The Quarry and Marvel's Midnight Suns are bundled into that classification along with tentpole franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption as well as sports games like the NBA 2K and PGA 2K franchises. Take-Two previously said back in May that it plans on "doubling" its rollout of these kinds of games before the end of the current fiscal year compared to the prior year, so presumably there are still some in the pipeline that we don't know about.

Anyway, in response to an investment banker's question during the call about what's taking so long for Take-Two's highest tier of games to release, the publisher's CEO Strauss Zelnick assured there weren't any "productivity issues" to blame. Rather, the company simply insists on releasing bangers instead of "flops," even if that means delays.

"We definitely have very high quality expectations and demands, and that's reflected in the fact that we're performing across the board," Zelnick said. "This company is a hit factory. We haven't had a disappointing release in as long as I can remember, and that's honestly the most important thing."

Zelnick added that he'd rather delay a game until it's ready and even lower projected sales - which is of course what affects investors the most - than release a bad game.

"If you have to choose, I'd much rather have the situation we're in, which is [that] we've had some delays and we've had to revise down guidance. I'll choose that any day over taking some flops. That's really the key in this business. We've had issues—we've been around long enough to remember them—where in the past we've had delays in titles, and it was ultimately always worth waiting for, because when we got to the other side, the results were delivered and the small amount of time delay didn't ultimately matter in the context of the results we were able to deliver. I'm hopeful that'll be the case here as well."

In the same call, Zelnick called the massive GTA 6 "disappointing" but assured it won't affect development.