Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick predicts that low-latency game streaming will reach commercial viability within three years, potentially helping players bypass rising hardware costs for demanding video games.
Quick Facts
- Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick expects low-latency commercial game streaming within three years.
- Rising hardware costs are driven largely by AI data centers and ongoing RAM shortages.
- Streaming could expand the effective install base by 10x by turning non-gaming machines into gaming devices.
Hardware Costs and the Case for Streaming
During a quarterly earnings call, Zelnick addressed the rapidly increasing cost of hardware globally, admitting that expensive equipment is "not a good thing" for business because publishers rely on players having machines to run their games.
Rather than relying solely on traditional consoles and PCs, Zelnick pointed to cloud streaming as a practical solution. He stated that successful low-latency streaming would allow machines that were not previously game machines to function as gaming devices, effectively expanding the total install base by tenfold.
What Remains Unknown
While Zelnick remains bullish on a three-year timeline for commercial-grade low-latency streaming, major technical hurdles remain. Existing cloud streaming apps on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC still represent a niche market due to lingering latency and stability challenges.
It is currently an open question whether cloud infrastructure can successfully scale to support increasingly demanding software. Zelnick acknowledged that Take-Two's upcoming digital-only Grand Theft Auto 6 will present significant technical challenges for the cloud format as it currently exists.