Take Two won't do an Activision in annualising big titles

Take Two president Strauss Zelnick has said the publisher won't annually release its big titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead in the way Activision does with Call of Duty and Guitar Hero.

His comments came at the Reuters Global Media Summit.

He also said that packaged games at retail will still dominate the market within five years.

"I still think in five years the packaged goods business will dominate," said Zelnick, adding the growth of digital distribution would take a while to pick up.

"It's kind of irrelevant to us -- basically the same gross margin, basically the same risk."

Zelnick also suggested that Take Two's dependence solely on Grand Theft Auto has now gone away.

"We don't have any structural impediment to being profitable in a given year."

He further added the company's license with Major League Baseball may be put on hold, but will consider renewing its contract if the situation changes.

"It's a losing proposition and we don't have any interest in pursuing losing propositions."

Take Two's seen successful releases of Red Dead Redemption, BioShock 2 this year, with big hitters for next year coming in the form of LA Noire in spring and Max Payne 3 at some point during calendar 2011 from Rockstar, as well as Duke Nukem Forever from 2K and Gearbox.