Take-Two outlines future plans, priorities

The insanity has finally passed. The corporate espionage is over ... the guns have been fired, the smoke has cleared away and the dust has settled. Following the much-publicized departure of ex-CEO Paul Eibeler, Take-Two CFO Karl Winters stepped down from the company as well. Now Take-Two has a chance to start anew. Speaking with Gamasutra, current chairman Strauss Zelnick and CEO Ben Feder outlined the company's future plans in brief. As expected, this is far easier said than done in light of the companies recent problems.

The five point plan revealed by the executives that include assessing Take-Two's organizational structure, including the hiring of a new CFO after yesterday's departure of standing CFO Karl Winters.

Zelnick also said the company would be reviewing and addressing costs structures, already "well underway," across all of Take-Two's divisions and looking at strategic alternatives, including stripping away any non-core, non-profitable, and marginal businesses.

The company went on to mention that while profits from 2K Sports might fall short in 2007, the issue would be addressed and corrected shortly. Also, as it turns out, current CEO Ben Feder may not be in the chair permanently, as Zelnick stated that they were simply there to "clean up", make some "unpleasant decisions" and would only serve "as long as needed, and no longer than necessary."

Regarding support for Nintendo, who the company has never shared a particularly close relationship with, Zelnick seemed to have good news.

Zelnick confirmed that "working with Nintendo is a priority," and in fact "all of next-gen is a priority," adding that the challenge was to tailor games to each platform and the type of consumer that was attracted to the platform, but that Take-Two was committed to creating "great games for Nintendo."

This is great news. Sure, there might have been a few bumps along the way and a few people might have been asked to step down, but all said and done, it's good to see that Take-Two is finally getting back on its feet. As for the staff that are no longer with the company, I doubt they'd have much of a problem putting up elsewhere. After all, a lot of game industry workers seem to be shifting companies these days. May as well be trendy like everyone else, eh?

Once the mess with Jack Thompson is cleared up (I'll bet that's what's causing the new guys to stick around), I'm fairly certain Take-Two will pick itself off the floor, dust itself off and start to move up the ladder again. Now, if only Atari could do the same...