'Red Dead Redemption 2' Release Date Rumors: Project Confirmed By Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick [PHOTO]

"Red Dead Redemption 2" is definately going to happen, eventually.

It all started when a senior engineer from Rockstar said, through his LinkedIn profile, that he was working on a new popular game. This fueled specualation about Bully and Manhunt, but it now seems "Red Dead Redemption 2" is the most likely game to come out of Rockstar. Feinstein was likely talking about "Red Dead Redemption 2" ; since then speculation has gone into overgdrive, with some sites saying it could be released as soon as Fall 2015.

In the recent Cowen and Company analyst conference, Gamespot cited Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who elaborated on the rumors.

"It's been our goal not just to preserve and grow the Grand Theft Auto franchise, but also to build other franchises that we think can be permanent, whether that's the Red Dead franchise or the Borderlands franchise or the BioShock franchise or others, Civilization, for example," he said, suggesting that the hopes of continuing the RDR franchise could certainly happen.

"Our goal is to try to create permanent franchises, that's the unique goal in the industry. Our competitors do not see it that way. Our competitors' view is that our franchise will have a certain life, and at the end of that life, you move onto the next thing, so you better make hay while the sun shines," Zelnick said.

"Our view is to the contrary. The best franchises are permanent franchises. Outside of our business you can look at James Bond, for example," he added.

Earlier this year, VG 24/7 has reported that Red Dead Redemption "appeared on a database made by Microsoft to help in determining application compatibility with its various operating systems."

According to the report of VG 24/7, The Red Dead Redemption PC version was shown with various compatibility statuses for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

Speaking this week during the Cowen and Company analyst conference, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick described the Red Dead brand as a "permanent" franchise that can sit alongside the likes of Grand Theft Auto or Borderlands.

Zelnick's comments came as part of a response to a question about why Take-Two takes a "selective" approach to releasing games rather than flooding the market with new games.

"The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn't really what consumers want. Consumers want better, not more," Zelnick said. "So our selective approach, which we've taken since '07 I think has paid off. Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we've launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent."

"I pretty much know the ones that I can assure you are permanent. It's obvious that GTA is a permanent franchise as long as we keep delivering this incredible quality; it seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise, again with the same caveat, or Borderlands, for example, and NBA and others," Zelnick added. "But not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. We can do very well even if it's not. I would like to see us grow with a couple more great franchises in the next couple years and we're launching Evolve; we have very high hopes for that."

This is actually the second time Zelnick has referred to Red Dead Redemption as a "permanent" franchise, following comments from July 2013. 

"We have a really high hit ratio. It's probably not realistic to believe it could be much higher than it is. We've had precious few flops. And at least, of the few I can think of--and I can think of a few, sadly--at least one of them was just a misguided decision on my part, which was Duke Nukem," Zelnick said. "And a couple others are the natural success and failure of any entertainment company, except our hit ratio is much higher than anyone else's. So much as I'd love to say we make no mistakes, if you're not making any mistakes at all you're probably not trying hard enough. And the business does have inherent risk. And you do need to push the envelope. And if you're pushing the envelope, now and then you'll get it wrong."

No further announcements from Rockstar San Diego or Take-Two regarding Red Dead Redemption 2 release dates have been released.