Take Two CEO Says Low Latency Cloud Gaming Could Expand Gaming’s Installed Base by 10x

Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick believes cloud gaming could dramatically expand the addressable gaming market within the next 3 years, arguing that improvements in low latency streaming and edge computing could turn devices that were never designed as gaming machines into platforms capable of running major games. Speaking during Take Two’s Q1 fiscal 2027 earnings discussion, Zelnick predicted that commercially viable game streaming could arrive within 3 years and potentially increase the effective gaming installed base by as much as 10x.

The comments came while Zelnick was discussing rising hardware costs and their potential impact on the gaming industry. The Take Two executive acknowledged that more expensive consoles and PC hardware are not positive for consumers or publishers because lower prices naturally put gaming hardware into more homes. However, he does not currently consider higher hardware prices a significant obstacle for Take Two because the company believes demand for its major franchises remains strong. Take Two reported $1.39 billion in net bookings during its latest fiscal quarter and continues to expect between $8 billion and $8.2 billion for the full fiscal year.

Cloud streaming could eventually change that hardware equation entirely. Instead of requiring every player to purchase a dedicated console or powerful gaming PC, games could run on remote GPU infrastructure while televisions, laptops, tablets, handhelds, and other connected devices primarily handle video decoding, input, and display output. Zelnick expects that reducing the need for dedicated gaming hardware could materially increase the number of people capable of accessing premium games.

"That can 10x the effective installed base."
— Quote by: Strauss Zelnick.

Zelnick was careful to separate that potential audience expansion from revenue growth. Increasing the effective installed base by 10x does not mean Take Two expects its revenue to increase by the same amount because dedicated gaming enthusiasts already own consoles or gaming PCs. The opportunity instead comes from reaching consumers outside the traditional core gaming market with franchises that have enough mainstream recognition to attract them. Grand Theft Auto is an obvious example, particularly as GTA VI approaches its November 19 launch and preorder demand has already reached what Take Two describes as unprecedented levels.

The prediction also raises an obvious question because cloud gaming has attempted to break into the mainstream before. Google Stadia ultimately shut down despite significant investment, while services from Microsoft, Sony, NVIDIA, and others have continued developing without replacing conventional gaming hardware. Zelnick believes the difference this time is infrastructure. He specifically pointed toward major advances in hyperscaler networks and edge technology that can position compute resources physically closer to players, reducing one of cloud gaming’s biggest technical disadvantages.

That infrastructure is already beginning to appear. NVIDIA and Comcast announced an AI Grid initiative earlier this year that places NVIDIA accelerated computing closer to customers at the network edge. Comcast specifically identifies cloud gaming as one of its target workloads, saying the architecture can reduce latency by moving GPU resources physically closer to players. NVIDIA has also continued improving GeForce NOW through Blackwell based infrastructure, with RTX 5080 class systems supporting high resolution and high refresh rate cloud gaming while targeting extremely low response times.

This progress is already visible through GeForce NOW, where NVIDIA has expanded RTX 5080 class performance across nearly its entire supported library. The company is also continuing to add new releases, with 26 additional games joining throughout August. The technical capabilities of cloud gaming are therefore progressing rapidly even if publisher participation and game availability remain inconsistent.

Take Two itself would represent an important test for this future. Franchises including Borderlands, Civilization, Mafia, and XCOM already appear on GeForce NOW, but Rockstar Games titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption remain absent. A future cloud release of GTA VI would therefore provide a far stronger demonstration of whether high profile AAA gaming can realistically move beyond dedicated local hardware.

Zelnick is not presenting that outcome as guaranteed. He acknowledged that his 3 year prediction could be wrong and emphasized that Take Two is not building its corporate strategy around cloud gaming becoming dominant. Instead, the company sees low latency streaming as an additional distribution opportunity that could dramatically increase access if networking technology reaches the level required for responsive mainstream gaming.

Cloud gaming has spent years promising that almost any screen could become a gaming machine, but latency has consistently prevented that vision from fully replacing local hardware. What makes Zelnick’s prediction more interesting in 2026 is that the underlying network architecture is finally changing.

Moving GPU infrastructure closer to users through edge networks attacks the problem where it matters most. Faster GPUs can improve rendering performance and better codecs can improve image quality, but neither fixes a game that feels delayed when the player presses a button. Edge computing, improved broadband latency, and technologies such as L4S could make streaming substantially more responsive than earlier cloud platforms.

A 10x increase in effective installed base remains an extremely ambitious projection, and cloud gaming still faces bandwidth requirements, regional infrastructure differences, game licensing, ownership concerns, and ongoing server costs. Dedicated consoles and gaming PCs are therefore unlikely to disappear simply because streaming improves.

However, if premium games eventually become playable with acceptable latency on hardware people already own, the barrier between someone who wants to play a game and someone willing to purchase a $500 or more gaming machine becomes much smaller. For publishers with globally recognized franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, that could be one of the largest audience expansions the industry has seen.

If cloud gaming reached near local latency and image quality, would you still buy a powerful gaming PC or console, or would streaming become enough for you?