Take-Two Interactive Software program reported that its internet bookings hit $1.47 billion within the fiscal second quarter ended September 30, up 2% from $1.44 billion a yr in the past.
The bookings progress was pushed by gross sales of the Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands franchises, and the corporate reiterated its out search for internet bookings for the yr ending March 31, 2025. On a non-GAAP foundation, Take-Two mentioned earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA, a key measure of profitability) was a lack of $75.5 million within the quarter.
All eyes are on Take-Two, as Rockstar Video games on schedule to publish Grand Theft Auto VI within the fall of subsequent yr, about 13 years after the debut of Grand Theft Auto V, which has now offered 205 million copies. Take-Two’s inventory is up 3% to $173 a share in after-hours buying and selling.
“I’m happy to report that we delivered sturdy second quarter outcomes,” mentioned Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, in an announcement. “Our internet bookings of $1.47 billion have been on the high of our steering vary, pushed by the continued success of the Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands franchises, and our working outcomes
surpassed our plans, largely as a result of a shift within the timing of selling bills inside the yr.”
Zelnick added, “Our execution has been constant, and our groups proceed to make nice progress advancing our improvement pipeline. Accordingly, we’re reiterating our fiscal yr 2025 internet bookings steering vary of $5.55 to $5.65 billion, and we’re assured that we are going to obtain sequential will increase and document ranges of Web Bookings in fiscal years 2026 and 2027.”
And he mentioned, “As we glance forward, we imagine that Take-Two stays exceedingly well-positioned for the long-term. Our imaginative and prescient is obvious, our expertise is unparalleled, and we’ve got one of many strongest portfolios of owned mental property in our trade. With many thrilling new titles coming in Fiscal 2026 – together with Grand Theft Auto VI within the fall, Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Outdated Nation – we anticipate to create long-term worth for our shareholders.”
Through the quarter, the corporate mentioned it offered the Non-public Division label, which focuses on third-party authentic indie titles. Nevertheless it didn’t identify the customer.
The $1.47 billion in bookings have been on the high of the steering vary.
In different particulars, internet bookings from recurrent client spending grew 6% and accounted for 81% of complete internet bookings within the quarter. The most important contributors to internet bookings have been NBA 2K25 and NBA 2K24, Grand Theft Auto On-line and Grand Theft Auto V, and Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 and Pink Lifeless On-line.
Within the extra informal/cell video games, Take-Two mentioned the quarter benefited from gross sales for Toon Blast, the hyper-casual cell portfolio, and Zynga’s titles together with Match Manufacturing unit!, Empires & Puzzles, Phrases With Mates and Toy Blast.
Recurrent client spending is generated from ongoing client engagement and consists of digital forex, add-on content material, in-game purchases and in-game promoting.
Web bookings is Take-Two’s operational metric and outlined as the online quantity of services offered digitally or sold-in bodily in the course of the interval, and consists of licensing charges, merchandise, in-game promoting, technique guides and writer incentives.
On a GAAP accounting foundation, internet income elevated 4% to $1.35 billion, as in comparison with $1.30 billion in final yr’s fiscal second quarter. Recurrent client spending elevated 8% and accounted for 80% of complete GAAP internet income.
On a GAAP foundation, the online loss was $365.5 million, or $2.08 per share, as in comparison with $543.6 million, or $3.20 per share, for the comparable interval final yr.
Outlook
For the third fiscal quarter ending December 31, the corporate expects internet bookings to be $1.35 billion to $1.4 billion, and non-GAAP EBITDA to be $78 million to $100 million.
For the GAAP fiscal yr ending March 31, 2025, Take-Two expects internet income to be $5.57 billion to $5.67 billion. The GAAP internet loss is predicted to be $775 million to $839 million, whereas non-GAAP EBITDA is predicted to be $282 million to $336 million.
The most important contributors to internet bookings are anticipated to be NBA 2K, the Grand Theft Auto collection, Toon Blast, our hyper-casual cell portfolio, Match Manufacturing unit, Empires & Puzzles, the Pink Lifeless Redemption collection, Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, and Phrases with Mates.
The web bookings outlook is predicted to be in a spread of $5.55 billion to $5.65 billion, which represents 5% progress over FY24.
Take-Two now anticipate RCS to develop roughly 4%, representing 78% of Web Bookings. That is up barely from the prior forecast of three%, pushed by NBA 2K. The RCS forecast continues to imagine a excessive single digit enhance for cell, pushed by Match Manufacturing unit and Toon Blast, partially offset by declines within the hyper-casual cell portfolio and Empires and Puzzles. NBA 2K is predicted to develop low single digits, which is up from the prior forecast of flat, whereas Grand Theft Auto On-line remains to be anticipated to say no.
Take-Two mission the online bookings from labels to be roughly 51% Zynga, 32% 2K, and 17% Rockstar Video games. The corporate forecasts geographic internet bookings cut up to be about 60% United States and 40% Worldwide. Non-GAAP Adjusted Unrestricted Working Money Move is predicted to be an outflow of $150 million, which is unchanged from the prior forecast, and the corporate stays on observe to deploy roughly $140 million of capital expenditures, primarily for sport know-how and workplace buildouts.
The outlook assumes a continuation of the present financial backdrop.
Sport data
Since July 1, Take-Two launched Zynga’s Sport of Thrones Legends on cell and NBA 2K25 on the consoles and PC. Within the close to future, releases embrace Sid Meier’s Civilization VII on the console and PC on February 11, 2025. GTA VI doesn’t have a particular launch date apart from the autumn of calendar 2025.
2K will publish WWE 2K25 within the March 2025 quarter. Borderlands fall is coming within the yr ending March 31, 2026, as is 2K’s Mafia: The Outdated Nation. Zynga’s CSR Racing 3 will come out on cell at a while sooner or later, as will Ghost Story Video games’ Judas.
The slight enhance in internet bookings was largely pushed by a modest enhance in internet bookings, in addition to mixture of enterprise. Within the interval, 82% of console sport gross sales have been delivered digitally, up from 75% final yr. Catalog accounted for $366.1 million (48.7% of non-mobile internet bookings). Take-Two has 37 titles within the works by way of March 31, 2027.
Rockstar Video games
Gross sales of Grand Theft Auto V outperformed expectations and, up to now, the title has sold-in greater than 205 million models worldwide. Grand Theft Auto On-line additionally exceeded plans, pushed by sustained engagement with the Summer season content material pack Backside Greenback Bounties, and an array of updates.
Momentum additionally continued inside GTA+, as Rockstar grew its membership by 35% over final yr, and added the basic title, Bully, to the library of accessible video games.
Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 posted one other good quarter. The title has sold-in greater than 67 million models to-date and, six years after its launch, nonetheless ranks within the high ten for unit gross sales globally, in line with GSD. Rockstar Video games was happy to increase its viewers additional with the profitable launch of Pink Lifeless Redemption and Undead Nightmare for PC on October 29.
2K
On September 6, 2K and Visible Ideas launched NBA 2K25, which scored among the many highest rankings on new technology consoles in current franchise historical past.
The sport has 9,000 new ProPLAY animations that present elevated authenticity; an all-new dribble engine, representing the largest technological replace within the collection’ 26-year historical past; and a extra interactive and interesting expertise in The Metropolis.
To-date, the title has sold-in practically 4.5 million models and achieved phenomenal RCS efficiency, the corporate mentioned. In comparison with NBA 2K24 for a similar interval final yr, NBA 2K25 delivered significant double-digit progress in common income per consumer and 40% progress in common video games per consumer.
2K’s catalog additionally outperformed, led by the favored Borderlands franchise. Now that Gearbox has formally joined the 2K and Take-Two household, Take-Two mentioned it’s wanting to capitalize on the numerous potential progress alternatives for Borderlands, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and different Gearbox titles.
Zynga
Zynga delivered one other quarter of strong outcomes. Match Manufacturing unit is scaling quickly and is on observe to change into Zynga’s second largest title by the top of this yr when it comes to projected annual internet bookings. The title grew roughly 16% over final quarter, pushed by its partaking gameplay, together with the current Star Race daring beat, and our strategic investments in consumer acquisition.
Toon Blast is sustaining its improbable path of progress, with Web Bookings growing greater than 50% over final yr, as our groups deploy extremely partaking new options, together with new single participant and crew primarily based occasions and social challenges.
The blended monetization efforts in hyper-casual are advancing nicely. Specifically, Screw Jam stays a high fifty sport within the U.S. Apple App Retailer. Nordeus launched the extremely anticipated 2025 version of the favored soccer supervisor sport, High Eleven. Backed by a month-long advertising and marketing marketing campaign, the discharge generated optimistic sentiment across the neighborhood, which helped solidify the biggest in-app buy spending per energetic consumer within the sport’s 14-year historical past.
Through the quarter, Zynga launched Sport of Thrones: Legends, and Take-Two is happy in regards to the label’s future cell launches, together with CSR 3 – Road Automotive Racing.
Non-public Division
Take-Two mentioned it made the strategic choice to promote the Non-public Division label (aimed toward third-party indie sport publishing) to focus assets on rising its core and cell companies for the long-term. As a part of this transaction, the customer bought the rights to considerably all of Non-public Division’s reside and unreleased titles.
Take-Two will proceed to help No Relaxation for the Depraved, which launched in early entry on PC in April.
The corporate mentioned it’s grateful for the contributions that the Non-public Division crew has made to its firm and is assured that Non-public Division will proceed to attain success in its new dwelling.
As for the variety of staff, Take-Two closed the September 30 quarter with 13,077 folks, together with 10,273 in-house improvement studio workers. These numbers have been up, respectively,by 110 jobs and 125 jobs. About 22% of workers have been in low-cost areas (India, China, Turkey, Serbia, Chile, and Hungary).
Strauss Zelnick interview
I requested if the U.S. presidential election would affect Take-Two’s future or maybe gaming’s future.
Zelnick mentioned, “We’re an leisure firm. We’re targeted on leisure, not politics. I’m actually enthusiastic about our future.
Requested in regards to the choice to promote Non-public Division and if it was a tricky time for authentic mental property, Zelnick mentioned, “I feel it’s at all times a tricky time for brand spanking new IP. We beat the danger in Non-public Division, and that danger was primarily based on a thesis that there have been a number of nice unbiased creators on the market we may work with and maybe construct some huge franchises inside that division.”
He added, “The crew did an excellent job, led by Michael Worosz. Just about every part that they invested in did nicely, and Outer Worlds did actually, actually, rather well. However nothing, nothing broke out to the extent of one of many core mental properties at 2K or Rockstar, and our actual mission and imaginative and prescient is to make the largest hits within the leisure system. That’s what we do. We try this in cell. We try this in content material.”
That led to the choice to divest.
Zelnick mentioned Rockstar hasn’t introduced a brand new GTA On-line for GTA 6, and he mentioned the labels make such bulletins. However he famous that the corporate doesn’t essentially need to sundown prior iterations in on-line because it launches model new titles. For example, in China, NBA 2K On-line coexists with NBA 2K On-line 2.
Relating to the Nintendo discuss about backward compatibility for Swap video games, Zelnick mentioned, “I’m at all times optimistic when persons are investing within the enterprise and searching for to innovate.” A spokesman added that the corporate is at all times pleased with platforms that provide backward compatibility, given the power of Take-Two’s catalog. In an analyst name, Zelnick mentioned, “By no means depend Nintendo out.”
As for layoffs throughout gaming, Zelnick mentioned, “I feel that the majority firms have gotten to no matter restructuring they wanted to do. And as you recognize, the trade goes as soon as once more, and I feel it should stay the quickest rising a part of the leisure enterprise for a while to return.”
Since Take-Two capitalizes its prices, Rockstar’s spending on GTA 6 reveals up on the steadiness sheet for now, and the corporate expects to incur advertising and marketing charges across the launch, mentioned Hannah Sage, EVP of finance and chief accounting officer, in an interview with GamesBeat. She mentioned the corporate largely hit its monetary targets.
Relating to Borderlands film, Zelnick mentioned in an analyst name that it was disappointing and the outcomes weren’t materials to Take-Two’s financials and so it didn’t break them out. The field workplace was $31 million, with prices above $110 million. He mentioned it drove some incremental sport gross sales.
