Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick talks BioShock 2 delay

4:14 PM on 07.13.2009   |   Brad Nicholson

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The recent delay of BioShock 2 caught us by surprise. In the statement announcing the delay, Take-Two creative officer Ben Feder hinted that it had something to do with development time. “We felt that it was essential to invest the additional time to ensure that this title will deliver what its fans expect and deserve,” he said.

During Take-Two’s fiscal conference call, Take-Two head honcho (and muscle man) Strauss Zelnick expounded on the reason for the delay, citing both a need for more development time and the global recession as the two factors.

“We’re disappointed to have to reduce guidance for the remainder of the year, particularly after 8 consecutive quarters of meeting our guidance. The revised outlook is a result of several factors: first and most significant, we’ve decided to move BioShock 2 out of this fiscal year and into 2010 to provide additional development time for this highly anticipated title. Second, we’re seeing further weakness in retail, which is effecting orders for both our new releases and our catalogue of titles.

“With respect to the release date of BioShock 2, we feel that a later release date is the right move to ensure the quality and performance of this key title. While the near term effect of that move is disappointing, we remain very excited about the release of BioShock 2 and the opportunity to build upon this extremely valuable franchise.”

“Given our commitment to creating innovative Triple-A titles, releasing a product before it has met our standards of quality would be inconsistent with our core strategy. It would also be detrimental with the brand equity and consumer loyalty we’ve worked so hard to achieve. Most importantly, we felt it would significantly reduce the return on our investment into this valuable brand, which would have a negative impact on our shareholders.”

That’s a long-winded way to say videogames aren’t recession proof and BioShock 2 needs more time. Well, here’s to 2010 and hopefully a better game for it.