Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick has said he is hopeful that upcoming sequel BioShock 2 will pack more of a punch at retail than its predecessor as a result of brand awareness.
Speaking to VentureBeat, Zelnick confessed that he would have liked to have seen the original BioShock sell in the region of five million units globally, despite the FPS having been met with overwhelming praise from gaming critics upon release.
“We announced it sold around 3 million units,” he stated. “I’d like to see a title like that sell 5 million units. That would make the difference for us. If you have four or five titles that are significantly successful, that will meaningfully change our profitability.”
“BioShock got a lot of attention. It’s brand is huge. It won lots of awards. But it wasn’t as huge as a seller. I’m hopeful that BioShock 2 will benefit from the brand awareness, where people will play it even if they didn’t play the original.”
The executive also revealed that Take-Two now has 16 titles in its catalogue with sales in excess of one million copies.
BioShock 2 is due out on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 later this year.