'I'm not psyched about a business where 3% of your customers pay you'

- Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick remains cautious about the free-to-play business model, in a GamesIndustry.biz report. Take-Two's mission in the game industry is clear – concentrate on big, high-budget games and franchises, from Grand Theft Auto to Red Dead Redemption to BioShock. With the company's resources focused on the pay-up-front triple-A business, Zelnick isn't planning on jumping headfirst into the free-to-play market. However, he's "flexible" if free-to-play opportunities become apparent for Take-Two. "If that's the way the business evolves, as long as we can get paid and make a profit doing it, we're happy to contemplate it," he said at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference today. "I'm skeptical that for very high-end products, that's the way the business goes. I think you'll continue to sell those high-end products as the entry point, and then you'll have in-game monetization for certain sold items and free items." If Take-Two is going to have a strong focus on high-end console games, the publisher will need to count on strong sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which are off to good starts. Zelnick added that, as of right now, the PS4 and Xbox One could outpace sales of their predecessors. "But," he added, "if we had a big market meltdown, for example, a repeat of '08 and '09 in three years, or two years, or two minutes, that would influence it. But if this economy stays on this track, yeah, I feel good about it."