If you’re expecting the inevitable rerelease of Grand Theft Auto 5 for next-gen consoles to be a straight up conversion from previous releases then you’d be wrong to assume that, as Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has stated during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference earlier this week that GTA 5 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S is not a simple port by Rockstar Games.

In the report transcribed by VGC, Zelnick has emphasized that remastering has always been a priority and it isn’t just about porting an existing game as is into a new system.

“I’m not sure there’ll be a bigger part of the strategy. Remastering has always been a part of the strategy. We’ve done differently than the competition – we don’t just port titles over, we actually take the time to do the very best job we can making the title different for the new release, for the new technology that we’re launching it on.

“So, we improve the technology, we upgrade the visuals, and we make performance enhancements. And that’s why I think our remastered titles typically do so well.”

Further elaborating about the GTA 5, Zelnick said that he’s confident the new version of the game going to next-gen will be done well by Rockstar.

“We’ve done great with the Mafia series, for example, and Grand Theft Auto [V] is now heading into its third generation which is incredible, he said.

“It was a standard-bearer when it was launched, it continued to be the standard-bearer in the second generation, we’ll see how Grand Theft Auto does in the next generation. Obviously, I’m confident that Rockstar is going to deliver just a great experience, but you can’t do that if you’re just doing a simple port.”

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, GTA 3 and GTA Vice City’s source codes were reverse engineered by fans, and this has been hit with a takedown DMCA from Take-Two.