Amid Red Dead Remaster Rumors, Take-Two Reveals Its Philosophy Around Re-Releases

Take-Two's president has commented on the company's philosophy around remasters, saying it all comes down to the money. As part of Take-Two's latest earnings report, Karl Slatoff outlined Take-Two's position on remasters ahead of the launch of GTA The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition and amid rumors of a Red Dead Redemption remaster.

"It purely is an economic decision. And the economic decision's based on what we believe that the fan base to be, how much is it going to cost for the game to be remastered, are we going to make other changes to the game to enhance the experience..." he said (via SeekingAlpha).

Slatoff pointed out that remasters that are simple ports without much new added don't typically sell as well as a game that is "truly remaster or truly enhanced."

Slatoff also said Take-Two factors in elements like whether or not it can develop a remaster in-house or if it needs to look to a third-party. Slatoff said selecting a third-party to handle a remaster has its own set of challenges, too, due to a competition for resources with so many companies these days pursuing remaster projects. For GTA The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition, Rockstar tapped Grove Street Games, the outfit formerly known as War Drum Studios.

But at the end of the day, whether or not Take-Two releases a remaster comes down to if it is a sound financial decision. "In the end, it is an economic decision and it is a resource allocation decision. And that's just math that we do," Slatoff said.

As mentioned, Slatoff's comments here come just days before Rockstar releases GTA The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition. It's been reported that Rockstar might release a remaster of the original Red Dead Redemption if the GTA re-releases perform well, though Rockstar has not commented officially about the possibility of this. What's evident based on Slatoff's comments is that, should Rockstar go forward with a Red Dead remaster, it would seemingly be more robust than an up-res for the graphics.

In other news, Take-Two has canceled an apparent superhero game at Mafia 3 studio Hangar 13, while it also revealed that GTA V has now sold 155 million copies.