Is $49.99 too much to pay for a game that came out over 10 years ago? That’s what many Red Dead Redemption fans seem to think, having seen the pricing of the new port for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch that Rockstar Games announced this week, but according to Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two CEO, the cost is “commercially accurate.” Zelnick, who gave the statement to IGN, also declined to say whether a PC version was in the works.
“That’s just what we believe is the commercially accurate price for it,” Zelnick told IGN after Take-Two’s latest earnings call.
“It depends on the vision that the creative teams have for a title, and in the absence of having a powerful vision, for something that we would do with a title, we might bring it in its original form, we’ve done that, and in certain instances we might remaster or remake, so it really depends on the title and how the label feels about it, the platform, and what we think the opportunity is for consumers,” the executive added when asked about why this new version of Red Dead Redemption was merely a straight port.
Take-Two’s EVP of Finance, Hannah Sage, also pointed out that the port isn’t just the Red Dead base game, but also Undead Nightmare. When asked if Undead Nightmare was the reason for its $50 price, Zelnick said the add-on “was a great standalone game in its own right when it was originally released, so we feel like it’s a great bundle for the first time, and certainly a great value for consumers.”