Take-Two is selling Outer Worlds publisher Private Division because it says it’s in the “business of making great big hits” like Grand Theft Auto — but was Xbox the buyer?
Take-Two Interactive has sold off the Private Division publishing label to an unknown party.
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What you need to know
Another game publishing label has changed hands, and this time, what’s most notable is what wedon’tknow about it.
Take-Two Interactive confirms that it has sold Private Division, a publisher that the company (which also owns Rockstar Games, 2K Games, and Zynga) previously held in order to work on smaller titles alongside mostly-independent studios. The buyer is currently unknown, though Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick tellsGamesIndustry.bizthat the purchaser will be known “relatively soon.”
One party that can be ruled out is Microsoft, with Windows Central’s sources confirming that the Xbox platform holder is not behind the deal. The unknown buyer holds the rights to most of Private Division’s catalogue, including the upcomingTales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game, though Take-Two is continuing to support Moon Studios' No Rest for the Wicked.
Private Division previously partnered with Obsidian Entertainment forThe Outer Worlds, though the game ended up launching in 2019, well after Obsidian was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 and added to Xbox Game Studios. Private Division still holds the publishing rights to the first game in The Outer Worlds franchise, but the sequel is being published by Xbox.
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Building bigger blockbusters
Take-Two Interactive was rumored to be interested in selling off Private Division earlier in the year after the companyshuttered Intercept Games and Roll7, the two internal studios under the Private Division label. The reason, per Zelnick, is that the company is interested in big hits like Rockstar Games’Grand Theft Autofranchise.
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“We’re really best at these big AAA experiences. We have the biggest intellectual properties in the interactive entertainment business, some of the biggest intellectual properties in the overall entertainment business and to make sequels to existing beloved franchises as well as to create new hit intellectual properties is our mission,” Zelnick tells GamesIndustry.biz.
“The team of Private Division did a great job supporting independent developers and, almost to a one, every project they supported did well. However, the scale of those projects was, candidly, on the smaller side, and we’re in the business of making great big hits.”
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Looking ahead, Take-Two Interactive plans to launch Grand Theft Auto 6 in Fall 2025, a title that’s widely expected to be an utter commercial juggernaut on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. Grand Theft Auto 5, which first launched all the way back in 2013 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, has crossed 205 million copies sold, firmly cementing it as the second best-selling game of all time behind Minecraft.
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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
