Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said during today's quarterly earnings update that the role-playing shooter, which had a "successful launch," shows signs of "becoming an important long-term franchise" for the company. That's not official confirmation of a Borderlands 2, but it's about as close as we're going to get.

Given Borderlands development delays and Take-Two's increasing inability to ship many of its "AAA" caliber titles on time, just don't expect that Borderlands 2 to show up any time soon.

Take-Two CEO Ben Feder was asked that very question during today's quarterly earnings conference call to which he responded that Chinatown Wars was an important step in its relationship with Nintendo.

"Without commenting specifically on whether GTA is coming to the Wii or not, I will say that Nintendo and Take-Two work very very well together," Feder explained. "Rockstar and Nintendo work very well together. We intend to continue to grow that relationship.”

Feder also noted that the company has invested "an enormous amount of time and effort working with Nintendo" and while he fell short of announcing a major product during an investor call, it certainly sounds like the door is open.

With over two million Carnival Games shipped on Nintendo platforms, it just makes sense.

While Rockstar has traditionally stuck with PlayStation, Xbox and PC platforms, it has brought Smugglers Run to the Gamecube and Grand Theft Auto to the Game Boy Advance. We'd say think that, given the hooker beating simulating properties of the Wii nunchuk, it's a no-brainer.

Now, it's a different story — Grand Theft Auto IV and BioShock are some of the highest-rated titles on Metacritic, and Take-Two is the number three publisher in the industry. The turnaround strategy seems to be working.

Feder credits the success to focus on the part of the publisher's creative studio teams. "They had their heads down, not focused on what was going on outside of what they were doing," Feder said. One of those outside things is an ongoing and aggressive acquisition bid by Electronic Arts, which Feder declined to discuss.

He was happy to discuss GTA IV's unprecedented debut. Since he's a business kind of guy, I asked him how much he deals with the Rockstar team:

"I deal with them all the time," he said. 'We are really proud of [Rockstar's] performance, and they're proud of GTA IV. it's been an unmitigated success, not just from a financial standpoint but from a creative standpoint... it's stunning success on any metric."

Feder said Take-Two prioritizes giving its studios creative freedom - what's his strategy for nurturing that creativity in the publisher's studios? "We need to protect our creative folks," he said. "We need to make sure that the outside world doesn't interfere with their creative process. We then need to provide the resources, and finally, we cant get in their way... [by] putting something in a box whether it's ready or not."

"We serve no wine before its time. We respect their work and their creativity, and that's not a strategy that everybody takes in this business."

Letting that wine take its time often means delays, however. "Title slippage is the bane of this business," said Feder. "We may have gotten lucky in the past, but titles slip."

Does that mean we can expect delays, then, with titles we're expecting? "We're on track," said Feder. "We try to operate with financial discipline and operational discipline. First and foremost, we need to delight and amaze our customers."

Since Feder mentioned "protecting" the creative talent, we asked about the ways that GTA IV has been strung up as a social whipping boy in the past for the so-called horrors of violent video games. Does Feder feel Take-Two's done a good job of standing up for Rockstar's work?

"I think we defend our work all the time," he said. "First and foremost we need to start with the notion that an M-rated game is not for kids... don't call it a game then, call it interactive entertainment, but it's not for children."

"But one of the great things about GTA IV iis that the parameters of the debate have completely shifted. It's not about any of the controversy... because the initial reviews were, it is an artistic tour de force, a technological tour de force, a success on every stretch of the imagination, it stretches the definition of an interactive experience. That was the bookend by which all discussion began, so any controversy that came out had to combat all that positive momentum."

So is Take-Two finally winning the PR war? "I don't think of it that way," he said. "I think it was just a hugely impactful and culturally important product."

Asked whether one console in particular was the root of the problem, Zelnick diplomatically responded that "I know there have been rumors in the marketplace about frame rate and some other issues. We don't think it's helpful or beneficial to go into exact details of what the technological issues are. We're pushing the envelope on both the platforms." Crap. Now I don't know which torch to light!

Zelnick explained that "the final say" to delay GTA IV was with him, but that "This wasn't a decision we took lightly. This wasn't a decision [Rockstar] took lightly." Having reviewed a build just a day prior to the announcement Take-Two felt that there was no way it could meet the game's October 16th release date.

On the subject of the Xbox 360 exclusive episodic content—the first episode of which was due in March—Zelnick responded that it wouldn't affect the deal, telling analysts that "We're not gonna send money back to Microsoft. That's not part of the deal."

No time frame was provided during the call for Rockstar Games' other release, Manhunt 2, with executives claiming they'd erred on the side of caution and won't provide an updated release date until they have an M-rating.

Zelnick and Feder also noted that they hate your guts and don't want you to have any fun. Yes, you.