Take-Two Interactive Software program reported that its web 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 web 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 bought 205 million copies. Take-Two’s inventory is up 3% to $173 a share in after-hours buying and selling.
“I am pleased to report that we delivered strong second quarter results,” mentioned Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, in an announcement. “Our net bookings of $1.47 billion were at the top of our guidance range, driven by the continued success of the Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands franchises, and our operating results
surpassed our plans, largely due to a shift in the timing of marketing expenses within the year.”
Zelnick added, “Our execution has been consistent, and our teams continue to make great progress advancing our development pipeline. Accordingly, we are reiterating our fiscal year 2025 net bookings guidance range of $5.55 to $5.65 billion, and we are confident that we will achieve sequential increases and record levels of Net Bookings in fiscal years 2026 and 2027.”
And he mentioned, “As we look ahead, we believe that Take-Two remains exceedingly well-positioned for the long-term. Our vision is clear, our talent is unparalleled, and we have one of the strongest portfolios of owned intellectual property in our industry. With many exciting new titles coming in Fiscal 2026 – including Grand Theft Auto VI in the fall, Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country – we expect to create long-term value for our shareholders.”
Through the quarter, the corporate mentioned it bought the Personal Division label, which focuses on third-party unique indie titles. However it didn’t identify the customer.
The $1.47 billion in bookings had been on the high of the steerage vary.
In different particulars, web bookings from recurrent client spending grew 6% and accounted for 81% of whole web bookings within the quarter. The most important contributors to web bookings had been NBA 2K25 and NBA 2K24, Grand Theft Auto On-line and Grand Theft Auto V, and Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2 and Crimson Lifeless On-line.
Within the extra informal/cellular video games, Take-Two mentioned the quarter benefited from gross sales for Toon Blast, the hyper-casual cellular portfolio, and Zynga’s titles together with Match Manufacturing facility!, Empires & Puzzles, Phrases With Associates 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.
Internet bookings is Take-Two’s operational metric and outlined as the web quantity of services bought digitally or sold-in bodily throughout the interval, and consists of licensing charges, merchandise, in-game promoting, technique guides and writer incentives.
On a GAAP accounting foundation, web 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 whole GAAP web income.
On a GAAP foundation, the web 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 web 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 web income to be $5.57 billion to $5.67 billion. The GAAP web loss is anticipated to be $775 million to $839 million, whereas non-GAAP EBITDA is anticipated to be $282 million to $336 million.
The most important contributors to web bookings are anticipated to be NBA 2K, the Grand Theft Auto collection, Toon Blast, our hyper-casual cellular portfolio, Match Manufacturing facility, Empires & Puzzles, the Crimson Lifeless Redemption collection, Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, and Phrases with Associates.
The web bookings outlook is anticipated to be in a variety of $5.55 billion to $5.65 billion, which represents 5% progress over FY24.
Take-Two now count on RCS to develop roughly 4%, representing 78% of Internet 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 improve for cellular, pushed by Match Manufacturing facility and Toon Blast, partially offset by declines within the hyper-casual cellular portfolio and Empires and Puzzles. NBA 2K is anticipated 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 undertaking the web bookings from labels to be roughly 51% Zynga, 32% 2K, and 17% Rockstar Video games. The corporate forecasts geographic web bookings cut up to be about 60% United States and 40% Worldwide. Non-GAAP Adjusted Unrestricted Working Money Move is anticipated to be an outflow of $150 million, which is unchanged from the prior forecast, and the corporate stays on monitor 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 cellular and NBA 2K25 on the consoles and PC. Within the close to future, releases embody Sid Meier’s Civilization VII on the console and PC on February 11, 2025. GTA VI doesn’t have a selected 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 Previous Nation. Zynga’s CSR Racing 3 will come out on cellular at a while sooner or later, as will Ghost Story Video games’ Judas.
The slight improve in web bookings was largely pushed by a modest improve in web bookings, in addition to mixture of enterprise. Within the interval, 82% of console sport gross sales had been delivered digitally, up from 75% final yr. Catalog accounted for $366.1 million (48.7% of non-mobile web 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, thus far, the title has sold-in greater than 205 million items worldwide. Grand Theft Auto On-line additionally exceeded plans, pushed by sustained engagement with the Summer time 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.
Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2 posted one other good quarter. The title has sold-in greater than 67 million items to-date and, six years after its launch, nonetheless ranks within the high ten for unit gross sales globally, based on GSD. Rockstar Video games was happy to broaden its viewers additional with the profitable launch of Crimson 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 scores on new technology consoles in latest franchise historical past.
The sport has 9,000 new ProPLAY animations that present elevated authenticity; an all-new dribble engine, representing the most important 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 items 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 person and 40% progress in common video games per person.
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 desperate to capitalize on the various potential progress alternatives for Borderlands, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and different Gearbox titles.
Zynga
Zynga delivered one other quarter of stable outcomes. Match Manufacturing facility is scaling quickly and is on monitor to turn out to be Zynga’s second largest title by the tip of this yr when it comes to projected annual web bookings. The title grew roughly 16% over final quarter, pushed by its partaking gameplay, together with the latest Star Race daring beat, and our strategic investments in person acquisition.
Toon Blast is sustaining its unbelievable path of progress, with Internet Bookings rising greater than 50% over final yr, as our groups deploy extremely partaking new options, together with new single participant and group based mostly occasions and social challenges.
The blended monetization efforts in hyper-casual are advancing properly. Particularly, 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, Prime Eleven. Backed by a month-long advertising and marketing marketing campaign, the discharge generated constructive sentiment across the neighborhood, which helped solidify the most important in-app buy spending per lively person within the sport’s 14-year historical past.
Through the quarter, Zynga launched Sport of Thrones: Legends, and Take-Two is worked up in regards to the label’s future cellular launches, together with CSR 3 – Road Automobile Racing.
Personal Division
Take-Two mentioned it made the strategic determination to promote the Personal Division label (geared toward third-party indie sport publishing) to focus sources on rising its core and cellular companies for the long-term. As a part of this transaction, the customer bought the rights to considerably all of Personal Division’s stay and unreleased titles.
Take-Two will proceed to assist 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 Personal Division group has made to its firm and is assured that Personal Division will proceed to realize success in its new residence.
As for the variety of staff, Take-Two closed the September 30 quarter with 13,077 folks, together with 10,273 in-house growth studio workers. These numbers had been up, respectively,by 110 jobs and 125 jobs. About 22% of workers had 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 determination to promote Personal Division and if it was a troublesome time for unique mental property, Zelnick mentioned, “I think it’s always a tough time for new IP. We beat the risk in Private Division, and that risk was based on a thesis that there were a lot of great independent creators out there we could work with and perhaps build some massive franchises within that division.”
He added, “The team did a great job, led by Michael Worosz. Virtually everything that they invested in did well, and Outer Worlds did really, really, really well. But nothing, nothing broke out to the level of one of the core intellectual properties at 2K or Rockstar, and our real mission and vision is to make the biggest hits in the entertainment system. That’s what we do. We do that in mobile. We do that in content.”
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.
Concerning the Nintendo speak about about backward compatibility for Change video games, Zelnick mentioned, “I’m always optimistic when people are investing in the business and seeking to innovate.” A spokesman added that the corporate is all the time proud of platforms that provide backward compatibility, given the energy of Take-Two’s catalog. In an analyst name, Zelnick mentioned, “Never count Nintendo out.”
As for layoffs throughout gaming, Zelnick mentioned, “I think that most companies have gotten to whatever restructuring they needed to do. And as you know, the industry is going once again, and I think it will remain the fastest growing part of the entertainment business for some time to come.”
Since Take-Two capitalizes its prices, Rockstar’s spending on GTA 6 reveals up on the stability 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.
Concerning 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.
