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?

What you need to know

• Take-Two Interactive, owner of Rockstar Games and 2K Games, has sold its Private Division publishing label.
• Private Division previously published games like Obsidian's The Outer Worlds and Moon Studios' No Rest for the Wicked.
• The buyer for Private Division is currently unknown, though sources have confirmed to Windows Central that it wasn't Microsoft.
• Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the sale happened because the company is interested in making "big hits" like Grand Theft Auto.

Another game publishing label has changed hands, and this time, what's most notable is what we don't know 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 tells GamesIndustry.biz that 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 upcoming Tales 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 for The 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.

Building bigger blockbusters

Take-Two Interactive was rumored to be interested in selling off Private Division earlier in the year after the company shuttered 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 Auto franchise.

"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."

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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