"The Holy Grail is taking a business, already a very large and successful business that's focused on packaged goods that you sell once ... and turning that into a subscription business or a semi subscription business where we have an ongoing relationship with consumers," explained Zelnick at the BMO Capital Markets conference this week as noticed by Kotaku.

Zelnick was eager to indicate that the lucrative DLC trade is an intermediate step toward that business model. "Looking ahead, the biggest opportunity that we see for the industry as well as for us is downloadable content," the executive stated, offering paid downloads for Grand Theft Auto 4 and BioShock as solutions to the thriving used game trade.

There are limitations to the plan, Zelnick conceded. "The triple-A titles that people really want to have that are really must have are in the best position for this business model," he said. Further down the food chain, however, Zelnick believes that "you won't be able to apply a subscription model to mid-tier titles."