Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has expressed that he doesn’t believe physical gaming is going anywhere and that it “isn’t a big decision” to produce a physical version of its games. The Rockstar, best known for GTA, parent company has no plans on ditching the medium.
In an interview with IGN ahead of Take-Two’s Q3 earnings report, Zelnick addressed that it’s “not costly to master something for physical distribution.” The key is to ensure the company isn’t producing too much inventory to handle, which can be a huge drag for mid-sized developers releasing its games to store shelves. This kind of issue is likely why some more notable studios will do very limited physical editions, stuff like with pre-orders or through a partnership with companies like Limited Run Games.
He went on to explain that it used to be a big decision 30 years ago when cartridges were the only means of holding video games, but now it’s easier than ever before. It’s also worth noting this stance considering a massive chunk of the New York game company’s numbers were digital — 95%, to be more specific — so really, Zelnick has some sort of incentive to cut physical game distribution if he wanted to, but he seems well-aware the community behind physical gaming is still very much alive and will throw money at it if it means holding the disc in their hands.
“It’s not costly to master something for physical distribution. As long as you don’t produce too much inventory, it’s not costly…So this isn’t a big decision for us. It was a big decision 30 years ago in the business when we had to produce cartridges, and you couldn’t do anything with them…but today we can order a disc and five days later it can be on the shelf.”
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