According to Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two, the memory and storage crisis will not delay the release of the next-generation hardware from Sony and Microsoft.
Following several credible rumors earlier this year, console gamers began to worry that the release of Sony and Microsoft’s next-generation consoles might slip beyond the expected late-2027 timeframe. The first report came in January from MST International analyst David Gibson, who noted that the PlayStation 6, at least, would likely launch later than expected due to the current shortage of memory and storage capacity. In February, Bloomberg then confirmed that Sony was considering whether to push the PlayStation 6 to 2028 or even 2029. Meanwhile, no such rumors surfaced regarding the next-gen Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, but the official confirmation at GDC that alpha devkits would be distributed in 2027 left some fans worried that the console itself could slip into 2028.
Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two’s CEO, however, is not concerned at all. In his latest interview with The Game Business, in which he once again repeated that no artificial intelligence is capable of creating a game like Grand Theft Auto VI, Zelnick was asked whether pricing and availability problems surrounding components could affect the launch of next-generation consoles. He simply replied that he does not see this affecting the delivery of those consoles to market.
It is a short answer, but also a very notable one coming from the head of a company that could soon become the largest publicly traded independent game publisher in the United States, provided that the announced $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts by a consortium receives regulatory approval. Zelnick is likely aware, at least in broad terms, of Sony and Microsoft’s next-generation release plans.
So from his point of view, late 2027 remains a realistic launch window for both the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Project Helix. Since every Sony console from the PlayStation 3 onward arrived seven years after its predecessor, in 2006, 2013, and 2020, a 2027 launch would make sense for the PS6.
Source: WCCFTech
