Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has not changed his opinion on game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and EA Play. In a Take-Two financial update today, he reiterated comments he made in September, saying he is "very skeptical that subscriptions will be the only or even the primary way to distribute interactive entertainment" in the future.

"That's because the way people consume it and the price point for owning a title is very reasonable, in fact, very low per hour," Zelnick said.

"So I think it's unlikely that subscriptions will replace front-line video game sales as the primary business model.

Zelnick then reiterated the idea that prices for standalone games are already low. At least, that's what he thinks about Take-Two's games. Zelnick said

"We offer the highest quality experience in the business, and we offer it at a much lower price than we think it's worth to the consumer."

There has been a significant increase in game subscription services over the past few years; Xbox Game Pass for PC offers a great library for $10/month, and EA and Ubisoft also offer subscriptions. If you buy a lot of games each year (especially if you are a fan of a series that releases new titles every year or nearly every year), these services can save you money. Of course, there are downsides. Games can be removed from your library, if you only play a few games in your subscription collection, or if one day you suddenly have to subscribe to many services to access all the games you want (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, HBO Max, etc., come to mind), you may end up paying for them in the long run. So is the question of how indie developers will be compensated in the future of subscriptions (Spotify is not necessarily popular with musicians).

The rise (or impending failure) of cloud streaming presents additional opportunities and problems. If the prospect of buying subscriptions instead of games is not enough, Amazon and Google hope to replace hardware as well.

What the future holds is genuinely uncertain. Subscriptions may take over like the movie rental business, but like Zelnick, they could become secondary to regular purchases.

Zelnick does not have a crystal ball either, and if he is wrong about subscriptions, he is confident that Take-Two will adapt.

"At the end of the day," Zelnick said, "it's up to the consumer to decide.

Interestingly, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson shared a very different perspective during his company's financial reporting conference call today: with EA Play's paid subscriptions now at 6.5 million, Wilson said that gamers "are not going to be able to get a will continue to look at subscription broadly across platforms and making it available to any player anywhere they want."