There’s been some buzz lately about potential “mid-generation” upgrades, specifically a rumored PS5 Pro. And while there hasn’t been any official confirmation of that yet, it has gotten plenty of people talking about the need (or not) for such upgrades both for consumers and developers.
But for Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, at least, mid-generation upgrades don’t really impact much.
Speaking to IGN ahead of the release of Take-Two’s Q1 earnings, Zelnick said that the need for a mid-generation console upgrade “all depends on what that mid-generation upgrade would look like.”
“Generally speaking, the mid-generation upgrades haven’t really changed much,” he said, later repeating that such upgrades “aren’t all that meaningful.” And he confirmed that they don’t change the way he thinks about making games or selling games, from a publisher perspective.
It’s not surprising that Zelnick feels this way, especially in this generation. Historically, mid-generation upgrades like the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X were largely focused on graphical and storage improvements, both of which are nice for consumers but don’t actually make a huge splash in terms of how developers or publishers make games. And in this generation specifically, the market is dealing with a slowed adoption of new consoles due to the now-concluded chip shortage, and relatively strong support for the previous generation (see Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s recently announcement).
We also spoke to Zelnick about rumors of a Switch successor, and while he didn’t have too much to say, he did say the publisher would “almost certainly” be an early supporter of such a console. Elsewhere in Take-Two’s earnings, we learned that Grand Theft Auto 5 has once again sold another five million copies to a total of over 185 million unit sales. Meanwhile, Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 55 million units, and NBA2K23 has sold over 13 million.
In total, the company posted net bookings for the quarter of $1.2 billion (up 20% year-over-year) and is preparing to release three “immersive core games” this year, with an even bigger release year on the horizon for fiscal 2025 that has many folks (including us) wondering if GTA 6 is imminent. Admittedly, that would look pretty good on a hypothetical PS5 Pro.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
