Take-Two says it won't increase game remasters for PS5, Series X

Take-Two Interactive CEO Straus Zelnick says the company won't start releasing a ton of next-gen remasters, and re-releases will still be additive to its slate of new IPs, annual games, and in-development titles.

Remasters are a great way to capitalize on a new console generation. Take-Two knows this quite well; they've released GTA V on Xbox 360/PS3, and again on Xbox One/PS4. Now the billion-dollar GTA V is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles with significant upgrades. But Take-Two doesn't want to saturate the market with remasters. Company CEO Strauss Zelnick affirms their remasters are more specialized games with dramatic improvements (case in point: the recent Mafia trilogy re-release).

At a recent Morgan Stanley conference, Zelnick says remasters won't become a bigger part of their business despite the new console generation. Greater care will be put into any re-releases, and these older games are additive to the company's current slate of games--a massive pipeline of 93 titles across mobile, consoles, and PC.

"I'm not sure they'll be a bigger part of the strategy. Remastering has always been a part of the strategy. What we've done differently than the competition is we don't just port titles over, we actually take the time to do the very best job we can to make the title different for the new release, for the new technology we're launching it on," Zelnick said.

"So we improve the technology, we upgrade visuals, and we make performance enhancements. That's why I think our remastered titles typically do so well. We've done great with the Mafia series, for example, and Grand Theft Auto is now heading into its third generation, which is incredible.

"It was a standard-bearer when it was launched, it continued being the standard-bearer in the second generation, and we'll see how Grand Theft Auto does in the next generation.

"Obviously I'm confident Rockstar is going to deliver a great experience. But you can't do that if you're just doing a simple port."

Take-Two currently makes most of its money from a handful of franchises including NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto, and Red Dead.