Take-Two Interactive Software tempered its expectations for fiscal 2025 bookings on Thursday after setting a Grand Theft Auto VI release for fall 2025.
Shares of the New York-based company fell 2.5% in extended trading.
This forecast reflects the new release timing for the hotly anticipated title, which is expected to be an immediate hit, generating billions of dollars in sales annually, according to multiple analysts.
The video game publisher now expects fiscal 2025 bookings to be between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion. This is a decrease from the previous forecast of $7 billion.
Take-Two’s gloomy forecast follows disappointing forecasts from Electronic Arts and Roblox last week.
Take-Two laid off about 5% of its workforce last month and scrapped several projects in development as part of a cost-cutting plan. This comes in line with similar moves across the gaming industry due to a slowdown in consumer spending.
Still, the company and analysts expect bookings to accelerate beyond fiscal 2025, driven by the launch of GTA and a series of other releases, including titles from the company’s recent acquisition of “Borderlands” maker Gearbox Entertainment.
Asked how much revenue Gearbox could generate for Take-Two, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said, “My guess is it will add $150 million this year and $300 million to $400 million in FY27.” said.
“We believe our company is poised to achieve new levels of success and we expect net bookings to grow sequentially in 2025, 2026 and 2027,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Take-Two has a pipeline of about 40 titles through fiscal 2027 and 16 titles through fiscal 2025, company executives said on a post-earnings conference call.
Wedbush’s Pachter added, “Once GTA VI comes out, they (Take-Two) will see a lot of growth in GTA Online.”
Take-Two’s fourth-quarter bookings fell 3% to $1.35 billion, but beat analysts’ average estimate of $1.35 billion, according to LSEG data.
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