Unprepared third-parties won't survive next-gen transition, says Take Two CEO

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick expects some third-party publishers will be unable to handle the transition to next-gen consoles, and ultimately going out of business should history repeat itself.

Speaking at the Credit Suisse 2012 Technology Conference, and reported by Gamespot, Zelnick said in order to handle the transition, publisher need to be prepared and positioned properly to avoid imminent failure.

"If you're not capitalized for the transition, you can find out that you're not there for the transition," said Zelnick. "Historically, in every transition that's occurred in this business, one or two third-parties have gone out of business. Last time around it was Midway and a couple of others. Reasonable people can argue about which one it'll be this time. "

Zelnick didn't call out THQ specifically during his talk, but it's easy enough to deduce which firm he was referring to.

"I have my own point of view, which I haven't exactly been quiet about. We make sure we're not on the list of casualties; to the contrary, we're on the list of winners," he said.

Zelnick said Take-Two will succeed in the new console market due to four "key elements": strong financials, power, technology, and owned intellectual property - elements he said T2 is "competitive" in or "best in the business" in his opinion.