GTA Trilogy’s many launch issues were just a “glitch,” according to Take-Two CEO

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition’s launch was underwhelming. It was a collection of three games with a massive number of technical issues — and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick considers all of those troubles a mere “glitch.”

The comment comes from an interview on CNBC’s stock market talk show Squawk on the Street. The discussion started with Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga earlier this month before host Jim Cramer asked Zelnick about “some defects in the new Grand Theft Auto.” Zelnick’s response was both corrective and something of a downplay. “With regards to the GTA Trilogy, that was actually not a new title. That was a remaster of preexisting titles. We did have a glitch in the beginning, [but] that glitch was resolved.”

A Wall Street-centric show isn’t the right place to get into the nitty-gritty of all the issues that the trilogy had at launch, and Zelnick’s response was also aimed at calming any worried stockholders, of course. Still, the situation seemed pretty dire when the trilogy first launched. Rockstar apologized for the myriad technical issues and later fixed over 100 bugs with a massive update. That was certainly a lot more than “a glitch,” but Rockstar has done some level of work to improve the situation.

Things remain far from perfect, though. The Nintendo Switch cartridge version still isn’t available yet, and all physical editions of the game are missing maps — something every previous GTA game has included. Fans will have to wait until the eventual Grand Theft Auto 6 for a make-good, it seems. Analysts predict we could see that game as early as 2023.