Grand Theft Auto parent company Take-Two just bought Zynga in a practically unprecedented $12.7 billion deal, and part of the reasoning is that it wants the opportunity to bring some of its biggest console and PC game properties to mobile.
In an investor presentation following the announcement of the deal, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed the deal and presented a slideshow to investors. Under a slide titled, ‘Product Portfolios are Highly Complementary’, Take-Two shows how the company’s respective games and studios can be used in tandem.
Of particular interest to many fans will be the line-up of Take-Two games, with the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock and Mafia listed alongside a caption reading, “Opportunity to bring Take-Two’s console/PC properties to mobile & add new game modes”. Those games are paired with a list of Zynga’s in-house studios, which are listed as having a “track record of successfully executing mobile game development.”
In a Q&A segment, Zelnick expanded on that point while discussing the benefits of the deal: “Perhaps most importantly we have the ability [with Zynga] – from both a development and a publishing point of view – to optimise the creation of new titles; new titles based on Take-Two’s core intellectual property. We believe we have the best collection of console and PC intellectual property in the interactive entertainment business – and it’s basically nearly entirely un-exploited from mobile and free-to-play around the world.”
Zelnick didn’t specify which specific franchises would be considered for mobile development, nor whether those would take the form of new games, or ports. He also called it “early days” for the collaboration, so it may be some time before we see those projects announced or released.
Even before the Zynga deal, Take-Two’s plans were extensive, with the company aiming to dramatically increase the number of “core” titles it released, with 19 games set for the next three years.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
