Take-Two CEO: Digital distribution won't kill game boxes

Digital distribution may be a growing part of Take-Two’s business, but company head Strauss Zelnick doesn’t think the days of shiny boxes on store shelves are over just yet.

Zelnick told Bloomberg (via Gamasutra) that digital accounts for less than 15 percent of Take-Two’s revenue, and the sheer size of game files means packaged goods will be around for some time to come.

While he said online distribution could comprise up to 40 percent of the company’s business in three years, Zelnick is also counting on Take-Two’s overall business growing and helping keep shop-fronts alive.

The distributor of franchises like Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Mafia can’t be said to be averse to new avenues - it's been a supporter of OnLive’s cloud-based product, and recently released a iPad version of GTA: Chinatown Wars on Apple’s App Store.

Expect more Take-Two products to head this way. Zelnick made a point of noting Gartner’s predictions for the growth of tablet computing - the analyst expects 200 million of them to sell in 2014.