BIZ: We were a bit surprised to see an exclusive GTA announced for the DS at Nintendo's conference. Why the DS? Is it just because it's a huge installed base or you really wanted to take advantage of DS features?

BF: There are a number of things going on, but you can imagine we're really excited about one of the best franchises, if not THE best franchise in the business, mapped against the largest installed base in the business. I will tell you corporately, we have been impressed with Nintendo. We have been good partners on a few of our titles to date and we want to continue that relationship, which is important to us. The opportunity we think is terrific and we will deliver on the GTA promise for a Nintendo platform.

BIZ: What about GTA on the Wii, or is that being considered for the future? If the hardcore market is underserved on the Wii, maybe bringing GTA to Wii would be perfect for it...

BF: I can't comment on it, but obviously we have one of the best selling third –party games on the Wii in Carnival Games from 2K Play, so we know the Wii pretty well. We're building up assets to develop for the Wii and we're excited about its growth. I can't comment on GTA specifically on the Wii...

BIZ: More generally speaking though, is the Wii being pegged as a casual platform?

BF: What I'm pretty certain about is that porting from 360 or PS3 to the Wii (or DS) isn't a winning strategy. And I'm equally certain that titles that take advantage of the unique hardware aspects of any platform... that's key to the success of the title. So we are not going to be looking to port games just to take advantage of an installed base. Our goal is to be the most creative and innovative company in the industry. You don't get there by just porting and dumping games on the shelves. You get there by looking at the platform and creating games specifically for that platform. Maybe you write off some marketing and some brand recognition, but you need to create a game for that platform and that's what we expect to do with GTA: Chinatown Wars for DS.

BIZ: Speaking of taking advantage of unique aspects of a platform, Nintendo seems to be happy with the response from third parties to its new Wii MotionPlus attachment. What does Take-Two plan to do with it?

BF: It's still early, but to me this is the difference between gross motor and fine motor. Certain sports don't need the fine motor; bowling for example. As the fine motor begins to get reflected in the hardware platform, you're going to see more and more developers and publishers specifically design games for that capability. And in that way, sometimes you need to lead, sometimes you need to follow. We will follow our partner's lead and if this is a unique aspect of the platform, we're going to build games to take advantage of it.

BIZ: So when you say you're going to "follow" do you mean you're going to take a wait-and-see approach to see how Nintendo uses the accessory?

BF: What I mean is Nintendo has innovated in a way we think is very cool. We'll take that innovation and say "How can we create games to take advantage of it?" and at the same time help ourselves and our partners along the way.

BIZ: How do you feel about Microsoft's Xbox Live Avatars and will they be incorporated into Take-Two titles?

BF: We're going to look at it carefully, but I can't comment on it today.

BIZ: With games having astronomical costs these days, what is Take-Two doing to mitigate the risk on titles that aren't labeled GTA?

BF: While game development cost are high, when I started in the movie business 15 years ago the cost to develop a movie at that time is about what it is to develop and market a game today. Now fast forward 15 years, and what does it cost to make a movie? You say costs are astronomical, but that's just looking backwards. It may in fact be that when you look 15 years from now that the costs today will look cheap. I think it's a competitive advantage in some ways. The more we go up that cost curve, the more and more 'mom and pops' fall away and it becomes a game of big players. As the third largest publisher in the business, there's an element of that that's good news. I don't mind costs going up as long as the opportunity goes up. By spending more in a game, I get more market share or get to sell games to customers I wouldn't normally. If the market grows and you can justify spending more on a game, it's fine.

We have a very disciplined approach, a new approach, at Take-Two to investment in video games. We have a very rigorous process that we installed when we came in a year and a half ago. That's paying off, and games either get cut or more often you take risk mitigation as you go along, and you say, "Look if you go in this direction it's just going to cost too much" and we look at the market for each one of these games and we say "Are we going to make back our investment?" ... That said, games may well get more expensive rather than cheaper. As you go through the cycle, everyone expects games to get cheaper because you develop assets and share resources, and we expect to take advantage of that too. 20 years from now, though, you may look back say "these were the cheap days."