Grand Theft Auto V is still performing above expectations and drove results at Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two, and all signs point to a sequel close on the horizon.
Outlining its future plans during its latest fiscal report, Take-Two said it’s positioning itself for a “significant inflection point” the 2025 fiscal year (April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025) that will culminate in it “delivering new record levels of operating performance next year and beyond.”
The company said that moment will herald an “exciting new chapter” that will enable a “strong trajectory of growth.”
Those remarks tally with comments made by Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick back in May, with the long-serving boss explaining the company will launch “several groundbreaking titles” during the 2025 fiscal year that could deliver over $8 billion in net bookings
“In Fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry,” said Zelnick at the time.
It has been almost a decade since Grand Theft Auto V launched on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, leading many to believe the nebulous moment Take-Two keeps referring to is the inevitable arrival of GTA 6.
It’s a logical assessment given Grand Theft Auto V continues to bring home the bacon for Take-Two, with its continuing popularity allowing it to casually hop across multiple console generations.
Grand Theft Auto is still Take-Two’s golden goose
Refocusing on the here and now, Take-Two’s results for the quarter ended June 30, 2023, show net bookings totalled $1.2 billion, which was at the high-end of the company’s guidance range.
That performance was driven by a 38 percent surge in recurrent consumer spending, which accounted for 84 percent of Take-Two’s total net bookings. For context, recurrent consumer spending includes sales of virtual currency, add-on content, in-game purchases, and in-game advertising.
With that in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising that titles such as NBA 2K23, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Grand Theft Auto V were earmarked by Take-Two as the “largest contributors” to its quarterly results.
“In the current macroeconomic backdrop, we continue to observe that many of our consumers are purchasing established franchises and those that offer strong value, and our catalog stands at the intersection of these two trends,” said the company. “Accordingly, our performance reflects better-than-expected results from Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V, and NBA 2K.”
Indeed, Rockstar Games’ major releases continue to sell like hot cakes. Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in over 185 million copies to date, while Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold-in over 55 million units worldwide.
Looking beyond the world of triple-A, Take-Two said that Zynga’s hyper-casual mobile portfolio was another major contributor and highlighted the performance of titles like Empires & Puzzles, Toon Blast, Merge Dragons, and Words with Friends.
“We had a strong start to the fiscal year and achieved Net Bookings of $1.2 billion, which was at the high end of our expectations. Our performance was led by our catalog of iconic, industry-leading intellectual properties, which continues to resonate with our player communities worldwide,” said Zelnick.
“Our core business trends remain healthy, and we are reiterating our prior guidance of $5.45 billion to $5.55 billion in Net Bookings for Fiscal 2024. Our teams are making excellent progress on our strategic focus areas, including the advancement of our eagerly-anticipated development pipeline and capitalizing on our revenue-driven opportunities and synergies, all while maintaining a deep focus on efficiency.”