The CEO of Take-Two has described Red Dead as a ‘permanent franchise,’ fueling hope that a sequel to 2010’s critically acclaimed Wild West adventure is in the pipeline.
Strauss Zelnick dropped the comments at the Cowen & Company Analyst conference this week (via GS), where he described the publishing titan’s selective release schedule.
“The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn’t really what consumers want. Consumers want better, not more,” said Zelnick.
“So our selective approach, which we’ve taken since ’07 I think has paid off. Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we’ve launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent.”
The Take-Two big cheese made it clear some of its biggest names won’t be retiring any time soon, however.
“I pretty much know the ones that I can assure you are permanent. It’s obvious that GTA is a permanent franchise as long as we keep delivering this incredible quality; it seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise, again with the same caveat, or Borderlands, for example, and NBA and others,” he said.
Red Dead Redemption prove a massive success for Take-Two, selling eight million copies as of early 2011. A sequel has been rumored for some time now, though nothing official has ever materialized.
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