Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Predicts Low-Latency Cloud Streaming Soon

Rising console prices are starting to ripple across the industry, and Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2 launch is set to add fuel to the debate. At the same time, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick argues that higher hardware costs won’t permanently slow growth—because he expects the market to move toward low-latency cloud streaming within a few years.

Release timing and availability: Switch 2 price increase, GTA 6 window

Hardware pricing momentum is clearly shifting upward: Sony already raised PS5 pricing, and Microsoft recently increased the prices of Xbox Series X and Series S. Now Nintendo is following suit by charging more for Switch 2 in Japan, with the higher console price also planned for Europe and North America starting in September.

For players, the immediate concern is what this means for the next generation beyond today’s hardware—especially if higher entry costs become the norm for future consoles. Zelnick directly acknowledged the downside: he said higher prices are “nothing good,” because in the end fewer people end up owning a console or a gaming PC.

Take-Two’s CEO: cloud streaming as the pressure release valve

While he sees higher prices as bad news in general, Zelnick doesn’t believe it creates a long-term crisis for Take-Two. He framed the company’s outlook around delivering experiences people want, arguing that this should not “hold the business back” even when hardware becomes more expensive.

Zelnick also pointed to an industry trend toward “open” systems and highlighted PC gaming over the last two decades as proof that ecosystems can evolve without getting stuck on one platform. In his view, the next step after that shift is cloud gaming—once latency is solved enough for broad use.

He went further than hoping for improvement: Zelnick said low-latency streaming is close enough that device requirements could change. In his words, once streaming arrives at scale with consumer-friendly performance, devices that weren’t previously built to run demanding games would become “game devices” instead.

Three-year forecast: low-latency commercial streaming

In a time-bound claim to investors, Zelnick put a concrete expectation on the timeline. He said that if the industry is serious about streaming—“really” believing in it—he sees the market reaching a commercial streaming mode in about three years, explicitly defining that commercial readiness as low-latency performance.

He also suggested that this transition could dramatically expand the effective audience. Zelnick believes cloud streaming could multiply the practical base of available “installed devices” by a factor of ten, since gaming wouldn’t be limited to owners of specific consoles or PCs.

At the same time, he tempered expectations for revenue growth from the numbers alone, saying the company would not assume revenue would also multiply by ten. His rationale: many enthusiastic consumers already have access to gaming hardware today, so the bigger upside is broader reach—especially for titles that can attract interest beyond a company’s core markets.

Zelnick’s final framing was opportunity-focused: he said the shift could create a strong opening for games that appeal widely, noting that Take-Two has such titles.

Still, whether players actually embrace cloud streaming remains an open question. It’s one thing to predict the technology shift; it’s another for audiences to choose it over traditional local hardware.

In the near term, Take-Two’s major upcoming release will follow the familiar hardware path: Rockstar Games’ open-world title launches on November 19, 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The planned physical release is described as disc-less, even though the games themselves are arriving on those platforms.