Zelnick: I want to grow Take-Two
rauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two Interactive since a shareholders' revolt in March, has scotched claims that he might sell the company, instead stating that he's looking for growth in the next five to seven years.
Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two Interactive since a shareholders' revolt in March, has scotched claims that he might sell the company, instead stating that he's looking for growth in the next five to seven years.
"I would say for the next five to seven years this is a terrific time to be in the video game business," he told the Reuters Media Summit in New York.
He added that following the sell-off of various non-core business operations, such as gaming accessories, the company was now "a very efficient enterprise" and that he wasn't looking to trim any further.
"I imagine we will try to find greater efficiencies but they probably won't be through headcount. I imagine headcount will grow. This is a growth business. We are in growth mode."
He added that the company will look to enhance its offering of original games, in order to complement existing franchises.
"From a specific point of view, what we find most compelling is building up our collection of our intellectual property. I'm not really interested in scale for scale's sake."
Take-Two released Bioshock earlier this year, which subsequently garnered very high average review scores and a BAFTA Best Game award.
Meanwhile one of the biggest franchises of all time, Grand Theft Auto, is set to release its latest instalment in Spring 2008, delayed from its original planned date of October this year, but Zelnick feels the game will be better for the extra time.
"I believe this release, Grand Theft Auto IV, is going to be vastly better than those expectations - vastly better - and that's hard to do when expectations are so high."
Take-Two's current market value stands at USD 1.08 billion, compared to THQ's USD 1.57 billion, Ubisoft's USD 2.39 billion and EA's USD 16.9 billion at the time of writing.