Red Dead Redemption is a venerated classic of the last generation. It's still #6 and #7 of Metacritic's all-time top-scoring PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games. That kind of respect screams franchise potential, and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick hasn't exactly let that go unnoticed.

GameSpot reports that at the Cowen and Company analyst conference this week, Zelnick listed it alongside some of the company's more sequel-heavy franchises.

"I pretty much know the ones that I can assure you are permanent," he said. "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."

Don't worry too much about yearly Red Dead iterations, though. This was all said in the context of carefully selecting which games to create sequels for and when, to keep players from burning out on a concept.

"Consumers want better, not more," he 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."