Take-Two “jumped” at the opportunity to buy Gearbox when the opportunity to do so on “reasonable” terms arose earlier this year, said CEO Strauss Zelnick during an investors call today.
“We have all the respect in the world for Randy Pitchford and his team,” said Zelnick. “He has the ability to bring triple-A products to market responsibly and on a very reliable and rather rapid cadence. And he’s a hit maker. It’s very hard to make a new hit, and Tiny Tina was a new hit.”
Borderlands spin-off Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands outperformed expectations, Take-Two said in 2022.
Take-Two has been publishing Gearbox’s Borderlands games since the first one in 2009, but did not own the studio until very recently. In 2021, Gearbox was acquired by Swedish holding company Embracer Group for $1.3 billion. Now shrinking and restructuring, Embracer sold Gearbox to Take-Two for $460 million earlier this year—the “reasonable” terms Zelnick was happy with.
“We’ve already identified many potential growth opportunities for the Borderlands series and Gearbox’s catalog, which we plan to pursue once the studio is integrated into our organization,” Zelnick said early in today’s call.
Gearbox was already working behind-the-scenes on what’s next for Borderlands—there’s been speculation today that Borderlands 4 could be revealed this June thanks to a Summer Game Fest tease—but Zelnick’s comment makes it sound like new Borderlands projects may be greenlit as a result of Take-Two’s acquisition.
At the same time as it’s growing with the acquisition of Gearbox, Take-Two is shrinking elsewhere: the company recently announced that it’s laying off about 5% of its workforce. It’s been reported that two studios will close as a result of the cuts, but now Zelnick says that they aren’t closing, although the situation remains unclear.
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