There are plenty of uncertainties about the exact release date of the next installment of the hugely successful video game Grand Theft Auto franchise. Rumors and speculations also abound about the content and gameplay of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6.
However, Take-Two executive Strauss Zelnick, the publisher of the GTA series, said the development team is not planning on making major changes in the upcoming GTA 6. Indeed, Zelnick told MCV that the publisher of the video game is not planning on introducing any drastic deviations from what the players have been accustomed to expect from the GTA series insisting that their formula has shown a huge success, and they don't want to make unnecessary risk with major changes.
Zelnick told MCV, "Our strategy, ever since we took over the company, has been a limited number of the highest-quality releases. Even if that means we need to postpone putting something out, even though we don't like to, in order to achieve high quality. Every time we do that, we're gratified by the results."
As well as sticking with the firm's strategy in developing GTA, Zelnick there won't be any changes in the game's future development, especially in the multiplayer mode. After all, GTA accounts for 39 percent of Take Two's total revenue in the second quarter of this year, with eight million players still enjoying the game's multiplayer mode.
"We need to be there for the consumer, we need to meet the consumer's interest," he said. "World of Warcraft shows that there are certain titles with a persistent world that can generate engagement and therefore revenue for long periods of time. But that's a very different model to our model."
In a separate report by Gamespot, Zelnick said that Take Two does not want to rush the development of its titles, particularly its big name games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.
He admits that Take Two is under intense pressure to start releasing games every year as the model adopted by other gaming studios, but Zelnick said his company remains committed to providing fans with the same level of quality for every game they release and not to short-change gamers with the yearly release but lacking in quality.
"The market asks us, 'Why don't you annualize your titles?' We think with the non-sports titles, we are better served to create anticipation and demand. On the one hand to rest the title and, on the other hand, to have the highest quality in the market, which takes time. You can't do that annually."
He went on to say, "What we would like to do is be able to have enough hit intellectual properties in any given year, whether we have Title A or Title B, is not the issue. We'll have a handful of really great franchises and new intellectual properties that together really have the economic impact of an annualized business without the detriments of an annualized business."
GTA V 1.29 Patch On PS3 and Xbox 360 For Anti-Cheat Measures
Meanwhile, Rockstar Games has announced the release of an update for Grand Theft Auto V on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One that aims to improve Anti-Cheat measures as well as fix various bugs.
GearNuke said that the update came even as Rockstar has not released any major updates for GTA V for the tPS3 and Xbox 360 including the Lowriders DLC. The last major update for GTA V was the Heists DLC on PS3 and Xbox 360. Instead, the game developer said it would not release any more story DLC for Grand Theft Auto V on the PS4, Xbox One and PC.