Take-Two’s Strauss Zelnick on the firm’s “most robust release schedule” and preparation for GTA 6’s launch

In its latest financial results, Take-Two Interactive recorded a strong performance for its first quarter – so much so that it’s raised its outlook for Q2 to between $6.05 billion to $6.15 billion.

Ahead of its most “robust release schedule ever,” Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about the firm’s latest results, and how it’s preparing for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6.

The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What’s the biggest reason behind Take-Two’s performance being above your guidance range in your latest results?

Thankfully, it’s across the board. All of our labels outperformed in a quarter, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. So at 2K Games, NBA 2K25 has exceeded expectations, current consumers spending up 48% year-over-year, and we’ve sold about 11 and half million units – much more than last year’s title. The rest of the releases of 2K are also looking great.

Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series once again exceeded our expectations. Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold-in over 215 million units [to date], and the engagement in GTA Online has benefited from the Money Fronts summer content pack. New player accounts for GTA Online grew over 50% for the year and continues to grow.

On the mobile side, Zynga is crushing it. Toon Blast, a legacy title, grew 22% year-over-year. Match Factory, a relatively new title, grew 33% and it’s only 18 months old. Color Block is Rollic’s highest grossing title in history, so we’re having a great run right now.

What are your expectations for Mafia: The Old Country?

I feel great about it. It’s a wonderful premium title, it’s priced right and it’s really beautiful.

How important are sports games to Take Two’s portfolio? Are you planning to expand this area further?

We have a number of sports entertainment titles, so obviously we have NBA, WWE, PGA Tour 2K, TopSpin; we have a number of offerings, big and small.

The truth is that in interactive entertainment, like in the real world, titles really matter in the key sports like soccer, American football, basketball. The smaller titles are smaller, and we’re quite happy to work on a smaller format if we think there’s upside. At the same time, [we still want to focus on] the big trick and at this company, the big tricks are NBA 2K, WWE 2K, PGA Tour, etc.

So how do you compete with sports titles from Electronic Arts like FC?

We don’t compete with FC. We do have a mobile soccer manager title called Top Eleven from our Nordeous studio, which is really, really successful. But we do not compete head to head with FC.

Is that something you’d consider doing in future?

I’ll never rule anything out, but I have a lot of things to do with my day. Taking on EA on soccer? Probably not at the very top of my to do list.

Looking at GTA 6, what are your market expectations for it next year?

We always want our labels to talk about their upcoming releases. I do think it’s fair to say that this is perhaps the most highly anticipated property pre-release in the history of entertainment.

But again, we run scared around here. We’re looking over our shoulders. We take nothing for granted and we don’t claim success until it occurs. So while I couldn’t be more optimistic than I am, all of us have to do the work. We have to deliver something great to consumers and then the consumers are going to tell us just how great it is.

What is Take-Two’s plan to increase its cadence of releases for the next year?

We have a number of releases coming in the next 12 months – it’s probably our most robust release schedule ever.

Obviously, Mafia: The Old Country is available on Steam and console. We have NBA 2K26 coming, Borderlands 4 which I’m really excited about, and WWE 2K mobile for Netflix. We’ve got WWE 2K26, then of course GTA 6.

We have CSR 3 coming from Zynga, Judas coming from Ghost Story Games, and Project Ethos coming from 2K. It’s the most robust lineup I’ve ever been able to talk about [this far] in advance.