Strauss Zelnick, boss of Grand Theft Auto publishers Take-Two Interactive, has explained why it’s taken 13 years to make Grand Theft Auto 6.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch November 19, more than 13 years since Grand Theft Auto 5 was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Speaking at the TD Cowen 54th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference recently, Zelnick explained why it’s taken Rockstar Games such a long time to release a new Grand Theft Auto title.
“In the case of Grand Theft Auto, it was not a simple story of ‘wow guys, it took you a long time to [release a new game]’ because look at what Rockstar launched [with GTA 5],” Zelnick said. “They relaunched and remade the title for PC, they launched and remade the title for each new generation [of consoles] and they launched GTA Online. They’ve been up to quite a lot [over the last 13 years]. One of the reasons why GTA 6 is so widely anticipated is because we have that GTA ecosystem that Rockstar built.”
Zelnick then went on to talk about the decision to not push for yearly Grand Theft Auto titles.
“We’re not a cadence-driven company. [When I joined Take-Two in 2007], I said the only [games] we are going to [release annually] are sports entertainment properties. We’re not going to do it with everything else. [We didn’t want to] burn off our intellectual property, because you’re in market too often [and] you can’t possibly deliver the quality you need to deliver.
“I’m not going to name the properties but we’ve seen that some very competitive properties have had good annual releases and bad annual releases because it’s just so hard to do. We set a new standard. You have to make stuff that’s great and creating some anticipation on the part of the consumer is a good thing. We didn’t say ‘there should be an X year gap’ between releases. What has driven the gap is the amount of time it takes to do something that is as good as it can possibly be for that intellectual property.”
Earlier this week, fans took to social media to mark the date Grand Theft Auto 6 should have launched (May 26) before it was delayed twice to give Rockstar Games more time to “polish” the title.
In other news, 007: First Light is finally out and fans are loving an early mission set in a nightclub where Chase & Status are performing.