Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick says gaming is ‘transferring in direction of PC’ because the business shifts away from closed programs, however we nonetheless do not have a GTA 6 announcement

I’ve been round lengthy sufficient to recollect a time when “PC gaming is dying” was one thing individuals stated with out irony: A declaration that the comfort and energy of consoles would quickly put an finish to the complications and expense of enjoying video games on PC. It did not work out that method, after all, and nowadays it looks like the pendulum is swinging in the other way: PC gaming is flourishing, and the walled-garden strategy of typical consoles is more and more being known as into query.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick expressed simply that feeling in a brand new interview with Squawk Box on CNBC. “I think it’s moving towards PC and business is moving towards open rather than closed,” Zelnick stated. “But if you define console as the property, not the system, then the notion of a very rich game that you engage in for many hours that you play on a big screen—that’s never going away.”

Zelnick’s qualifying remark hints on the state of flux the sport business at present finds itself in. Microsoft insists that it is making a brand new next-gen Xbox console, however it additionally desires us to know that every part is an Xbox now, which could lead one to marvel, as PC Gamer {hardware} hammer James Bentley did, what the point is of buying a new Xbox.

Valve, meanwhile, complicated matters even further with last week’s announcement of the new Steam Machine, a small, connect-it-to-your-TV box that walks, swims, and quacks like a console, but is in reality a low-spec gaming PC. That reveal prompted Xbox boss Phil Spencer to remind us all, seemingly without much excitement behind it, that Xbox is “one of the largest publishers on Steam,” and that doesn’t seem great for Microsoft’s console business: After all, if you can play Xbox games on your Steam machine, and you can’t play Steam games on your Xbox console, why would you buy an Xbox console? Much of that decision will come down to pricing and we still don’t have those numbers on the Steam Machine yet, but even at this stage it’s something that people are no doubt thinking about.

So I find myself agreeing with Zelnick—console gaming is here to stay, even if consoles aren’t—but I would be remiss if I didn’t note the little irony: Grand Theft Auto 6, far and away the biggest gun in Take-Two’s arsenal, still hasn’t been announced for PC.