Zelnick tells WSJ Take-Two has "fifteen franchises" with 5 million-plus sellers, and calls piracy "a fact of life"

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says his company has "fifteen franchises that have each sold at least five million units in an individual release". He said it in answer to a Wall Street Journal question about whether Take-Two has enough hits beyond GTA 6. Insider Gaming reported the exchange on November 5, and PC Gamer reported his comments on piracy the same day; both embed the same WSJ recording. We could not find WSJ's own write-up, and we have not watched the full recording, so everything here is as those two outlets quote it.

Insider Gaming says it was a 23-minute interview on stage in front of an audience, led by WSJ Tech deputy media editor Jessica Toonkel. In the first minute, it reports, she asked: "I think there is a concern that this is your big hit, and that you don't have enough hits in your library? How do you knock that down?"

Zelnick's answer, as Insider Gaming transcribes it, was that Take-Two has the fifteen franchises and, in his words, "the best collection of owned intellectual property in the video game business". He then went through titles besides Grand Theft Auto, naming Red Dead Redemption, NBA 2K, WWE 2K, BioShock, Borderlands and Civilization. He does not list all fifteen in the part Insider Gaming transcribes, and we have not checked his figures; they are his claims.

Insider Gaming says the interview opened with Toonkel suggesting the launch was days away. Zelnick replied: "Well, two weeks, but who's counting?" Grand Theft Auto VI launches on November 19.

On piracy, PC Gamer quotes him saying: "Piracy is a fact of life." He said that when he was in the movie business they figured on 10 to 20 percent at any given time, and that he would argue 80 percent of the record market was pirated by the mid-2000s, a share he says is now way back down. Those are his estimates, not figures we can verify.

For games, PC Gamer quotes him: "Because of the file sizes and the complexity, piracy is less of an issue in interactive entertainment, but it's not been a non-issue." If it becomes one, he said Take-Two will address it "with legal work and then with technical work". He added that because its games need a server connection for a good experience, a pirated copy "won't be a great experience. But it's not nothing."

He also told the interviewer that piracy "is going to be an issue in our business going forward", and that Take-Two is "just going to have to be vigilant about it". He did not, in the quotes reported, name any specific anti-piracy measure for GTA 6.

Nothing here changes the launch date or platforms. It is a CEO's own account of his catalogue and a general view on piracy, not a Take-Two announcement.