Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick spent about 23 minutes on stage at the Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech event on November 4, 2026, two weeks before Grand Theft Auto VI launches on November 19. Jessica Toonkel, the WSJ's deputy media editor, asked him about GTA 6's delays, whether Take-Two leans too heavily on one game, and where AI fits in.

The WSJ Events channel has posted the full interview as "The CEO Behind Grand Theft Auto VI at WSJ Tech". The quotes in this article are taken from the transcriptions published on November 5 by Insider Gaming (Grant Taylor-Hill) and GamesRadar+ (Catherine Lewis), and checked against PC Gamer's November 6 write-up. The three outlets agree on the wording.

What Zelnick Said About the Delays

GTA 6 was originally due in 2025, then slipped to May 26, 2026, and then to November 19, 2026. Zelnick did not apologise for the delays. According to GamesRadar+, he said "these are very difficult decisions to make", and argued that when your mission is to make the best entertainment there is, "sometimes you have to make these expensive and inconvenient decisions in service of that mission and goals."

He said many companies have a good mission statement and strategy but, "when push comes to shove", act against it. He also made clear that he does not approve every request for more time. He described a separate Take-Two case where he answered "actually, we're shipping", and added: "thankfully I was right."

He then turned to the opposite approach, which he described as being "slavishly devoted to a schedule". Without naming a game, he said: "there was a very high-profile release that fell into this category, and they shipped, and they had to pull the title after shipping."

The outlets don't agree on which game he meant. GamesRadar+ reads it as Cyberpunk 2077, which Sony removed from the PlayStation Store in December 2020 after its buggy launch. PC Gamer thinks it is "probably Concord", Sony's shooter that was taken offline two weeks after its 2024 release. Both are plausible, and both are the outlets' interpretation. Zelnick did not name the game, and he did not name the Take-Two title he chose to ship either.

PC Gamer also relays his first reaction to the news that GTA 6 needed more time: "I don't always feel calm but I tend to come across as calm. The timing of the call was not great for an array of reasons. We had just had a board retreat 10 days earlier so I wasn't thrilled about the timing."

This fits what Rockstar has already said on the record. In Bloomberg Businessweek's October 14 feature, Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe recalled that Zelnick first reacted to the second delay with "You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding", and then accepted it "once we talked through why".

"Examine the Facts": Take-Two Beyond GTA

Insider Gaming reports that one of Toonkel's first questions was whether GTA 6 is Take-Two's one big hit and whether the company lacks others. Zelnick answered with figures:

  • "We have fifteen franchises that have each sold at least five million units in an individual release."
  • Red Dead Redemption "has sold over 65 million units in the most recent release".
  • NBA 2K is "the second-biggest sports title worldwide, the biggest in North America".
  • He also named WWE 2K, BioShock, Borderlands and Civilization, and finished with: "Examine the facts?"

When Toonkel said GTA 6 was "days" away, Zelnick corrected her: "Well, two weeks, but who's counting?" That matches the official November 19 date for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Insider Gaming says Toonkel also asked how much GTA 6 cost to make. Neither outlet reports a figure in reply. Take-Two has never disclosed the game's budget, so treat any number you see in social posts as a guess.

AI: "Grand Theft Auto Is Handcrafted"

Zelnick was also asked about AI. According to Insider Gaming, he said "AI is sort of a mixed term in the video game business", because players do not want "anything that's called AI" in their games. He went on: "Grand Theft Auto is handcrafted, and that said, it should not come as a huge surprise to you that video games are created in computers with technology."

He added that Take-Two has "been in the AI business and machine learning business since the beginning of time", and that the company is "trying everything we can to make better games more efficiently".

Some headlines describe this as Zelnick hinting that AI was used to build GTA 6. That goes further than his words. He drew a line between handcrafted content and the everyday software tools every studio uses. In February he told GamesIndustry.biz that "generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building", and nothing he said at WSJ Tech changes that.

Piracy: "A Fact of Life"

GamesRadar+ and MP1st also report that Zelnick was asked about piracy. According to those write-ups he called it "a fact of life" for a release this size and said Take-Two's lawyers are ready if it becomes a problem. We have not seen a longer quote than that, so we are not reading anything more into it. No PC version has been announced, and the November 19 release is on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S only.

What to Watch Next

Take-Two reports its fiscal second-quarter results on November 9. That earnings call is the next on-record chance for Zelnick to talk about GTA 6 pre-orders, which the company has called "unprecedented" without giving a number. Pre-loading opens on November 10, code-in-box copies reach retailers from November 12, and the game launches on November 19. We will cover any official figures from the call as soon as they are published.