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Take-Two Interactive has been sharing its Q1 financial results, reporting better than expected sales but also forced to admit that hyped shooter Battleborn has struggled; it arrived around the same time as Overwatch, which definitely won that battle.

Take-Two Interactive president Strauss Zelnick has spoken to Games Industry.biz about the results, and was also diverted into talking about Pokémon GO. Such has been the initial financial success of Niantic's augmented reality app that it's a key topic for pretty much all industry executives right now. He didn't hesitate to praise what the app's achieved.

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It's really exciting, and I think it shows what happens when you apply interesting technology and great creativity to beloved intellectual property. The key point here is the Pokemon property is something a whole generation has this incredible affection for. And that's the real difference. This very technology has been used before in a title that kind of disappeared without a trace. What's remarkable here is not the technology and not really the gameplay. What was remarkable was tying that to Pokemon. And how can you not be impressed by what they've achieved? It's a wonderful achievement.

NX was briefly mentioned, but it was politely pointed out that it's unlikely to affect Take-Two's finances this financial year, ie up to the end of March 2017. The company's CEO has also recently shared optimism about Nintendo and the NX, but there's no real indication yet that the company has plans to turn kind words into game support. Like some other publishers it'll likely see how the system sells before committing too much.

In terms of Pokémon GO, though it is currently in the midst of some negativity online, there's little doubt that its success has raised plenty of eyebrows in the gaming industry.

With thanks to Benson for the heads up.

[source gamesindustry.biz]