Take-Two Interactive confirmed that Grand Theft Auto VI will release on November 19th, 2026, with fiscal 2027 net bookings projected at $8-8.2 billion, representing approximately 20% growth over fiscal 2026, driven by the GTA VI launch and successful execution across their portfolio including NBA 2K, Tomb Blast, and mobile titles.
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Take-Two Q4 2026 Earnings Call | GTA VI Release Date Update!Added:
Heat.
Heat.
Heat. Heat. N.
yo. Oh, let's go. What are we doing, boys? Let's go. Let's get into it. We got Sav in the chat. What's up? Bam Bab's here. G, I think I saw Kratos earlier. How's everyone going? Turn me up, boys. Turn me up. Let's go. Breaking news. Breaking news. Interview from Stra Sonic before the earnings call. We have got confirmation, boys. Confirmation.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is still on track for this year coming out on November 19th.
So, as a lot of us predicted in the community, the game is still on track for this year, and we will finally be getting Grand Theft Auto 6 releasing later this year, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm pumped. You guys are hyped. Let's go. Let's go. I'm so happy, boys. I'm actually so ecstatic that we actually finally got official confirmation that we are going to be getting this game coming out later this year, which is really, really good. And you can see the reaction from the community at the moment is very, very great. We got people reacting very positively this with this of course obviously that goes without saying. Got some also breaking news as well. Red Dead 2 has become the third best bestselling game of all time which is a massive achievement for Rockstar and Take 2. Fantastic. Wow. That's really really cool. So yeah boys this is really really really awesome. We are finally going to be getting this game coming out later this year. The earnings call will be going live in about 8 minutes. I mean what else much more is there to say from St. Sony? probably be getting some things coming about I would say in relation to the earnings or maybe some uh answers from Stra Sonic in relation to the Q&A portion of the call which is probably important to keep our ears uh peeled on that ears and eyes peeled. Uh wait when's it take to call in literally 7 minutes man 7 minutes so we'll be going live in a bit of time. We got Minnesota Wolves. How are we doing? The stock is doing good. Yes, most certainly the stock is doing very good at the moment. It is going up which is absolutely great. Bam goes I taught my mom to invest in tech when it was at 200. She's going to be happy when she wakes up.
That's it, man. That's it. Let's go.
Let's go. Real long game goes. Morning stream. We'll still have so much energy.
Yes, I know. Morning stream. And I got got enough sleep cuz I went to bed earlier last night. So, made sure to get uh an adequate amount of sleep. GTA 6 worlds in the chat, mate. Let's freaking go. Let's go, man. Let's go. Uh Conet Conen, hi PV just joined. Something happened already. Yes. So, uh for those people that have just joined, I will reiterate reiterate once again here. uh coming from GameRo who first reported on it uh that yes the game is still on track to release this year on November 19th which is very very positive. The earnings call is in about 6 minutes now but we have got official confirmation that this game will be coming out later this year which is really really good.
So yeah this was speaking to IG. So St. Sonic usually does these interviews much earlier than the earnings call goes live where he speaks to IGN and other outlets and uh yeah so this is really really good stuff. So, uh, he goes, "We obviously reread it today, so we feel really good about it." So, yeah, fantastic, boys. Absolutely fantastic.
How long does the call usually go for?
About, uh, 45 minutes to about an hour.
Uh, sometimes it can be shorter. Strauss sometimes usually leaves it, uh, ends it a bit earlier depending on what they provide in the earnings call. But yeah, we'll be coming up in about another 6 minutes or so. So, I've got the call up here. I've just got on mute at the moment cuz it's just like lobby music.
Um, so yeah, boys. This is really, really good stuff. Really good stuff.
Positive news. Palz goes, "Yes, positive news. Positive news indeed, my friend.
Positive news." Uh, call won't reveal anything new. Um, other than what's stated, most likely not, but it's still good to keep an ear out for um, some new things that may be answered in relation to the Q&A portion of the call. Maybe some other things that could be mentioned in relation to GTA 6. I think it's probably unlikely, but we'll have to wait and find out. Is there a chance of something happening during the earnings call itself? There might be, man. There might be five more minutes to go until the earnings call goes live, but it's still good to probably hear like, you know, obviously we got official confirmation, but still good to hear Strauss say it in the call. So, that's what I'm keen to hear him actually say it himself.
This is my first call I'm listening into live. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. I've done a few of these uh earnings call live streams. I did uh one in August of last year. I didn't do November or February. Uh cuz a lot of you will know that I was cutting out quite a fair bit and I had to fix up a few things and now it's all good. Change your name to Project Viceps. The way your arms are popping. Thank you, man.
Thank you. Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it. Today was my last day of school. Please give me something good.
Come on. Something else hopefully maybe Strauss can give us. Let's hope. Let's hope. But the game is on track for this year, which is great. For those new that are still joining, um the game is still on track to release uh this year, which is really, really good. Um, apparently game roll comes out here. Take to expects to mass net bookings of $8.2 billion during the current fiscal year thanks to launch of GTA 6. This is $1.5 billion greater than the bookings of financial year 2026. Wow, that's insane.
Woo! Holy moly. Holy moly. That's crazy.
Wow.
Take two and Rockstar be like, "Oh, that's funny.
That's great. Those snake alarm gaming.
No more delays, boys. No more delays. We are about 5 months out from this game releasing. Isn't that crazy? Four more minutes to the earnings call, guys. Four more minutes. Um yeah, GTA 6 countdown timer here. We are literally Yeah, we are about Yeah. 181 days away. So about 5 months away from this game releasing, which is absolutely crazy. Or about less than 6 months. Wholly expected profit. I know. I know. That's insane. 8 point what was it? $8.2 billion during the current fiscal year, which is fiscal year 2027, which started in April.
Imagine they just delay the game. They haven't, man. They officially confirmed that the game is coming out uh later this year. So, we've got an official confirmation from Daddy Zelnik himself that the game is still set to release this year. So, official confirmation with an interview they did with IGN from what I can understand about probably probably maybe 30 minutes ago or so, something like that. And it just came out about 5 10 minutes ago. PV game that Jason Devol for November 19th. Yes. Yes.
I'm just fixing some leaks. Oh, dude.
You got some time on your hands. I got some property with paying tenants. Take two. Scots stocks have skyrocketed.
Let's have a look. Take two stock. Three more minutes, boys. Yeah. Wow. Look at that. It's so quick how it happens. Hey, look at that. And then boom. Straight up. That's crazy. In like 10, 15 minutes. Look how much the stock just increased. Yeah, that's that's uh really positive news, guys. So, any of you guys that are invested in take two uh then uh it's definitely positives as well, I'm sure. Rockstar are indeed cooking most certainly. Two more minutes, guys. Two more minutes.
Um let me know how the audio is. By the way, it's just lobby music. Hopefully, it's all good, guys.
Let's hope we don't have to wait for trailer 3 till August. Yes, let's hope.
I might just turn this off. Actually, I'll leave it for the time being.
I've got some background music playing, but I'll make sure to turn that off.
We all holding as well. That [ __ ] baby.
300 by December. Yes. Yes. All good for me. Good. I've just muted it again. It's good. Hi, everyone. No more Hi, everyone. No more Hi, everyone, boys.
This game is releasing this year. Going to be releasing on November 19th.
Official confirmation from Strauss himself. I'd absolutely cry laughed if the Joker guy was the third protagonist on trailer 3. Actually, I might just have it playing just so just in case they come on.
Happy to see. More excited than last.
Hopeium stream PV. Yeah, I'm so much more happier today. Uh yeah, last live stream. I've just been so burnt the last couple live streams with those Hopium streams. Just been It's been shocking. I think it's about to start, boys. Well, about one more minute. Wav goes, "Greetings from Sweden." Wow. All the way from Sweden. That's awesome. I'm still sticking with trailer 3 on Saturday. I don't think we are going to be getting a third trailer or pre-orders going live. I think I don't know. I I still feel like it's probably going to be maybe it could even be next month. We don't know. It's rocks are very unpredictable. They could easily drop at any given moment now. Yo, PV baby Shan Diggity is in the chat. Let's go Shan Diggity. Dub dub dub Shan Diggity.
Uh fib agent. Why we need so many on cuz this PlayStation confirmed it. Greetings from Ireland. Wow. All the way from Ireland, David. Thank you for joining, man. Awesome to see you in the live stream, my friend. Thank you for joining along. But yeah, uh looks like it's about to start. Awesome. Let's go. Let's go.
Loading event.
All right. Let me know the audio is, boys. Hopefully it's all good and it's hopefully it starts live. We are live.
>> Hello and thank you for standing by.
>> All right, we are on boys. We are on and >> I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the fourth quarter in fiscal year 2026 take two interactive software results.
>> Hopefully, it's all good, boys. Let me know how the audio is.
>> On mute to prevent any background noise, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one.
>> Oh, yeah. The music is off. Music's off.
I would now like to turn the call over to Nicole Chev, senior vice president, investor relations and corporate communications. Nicole, please go ahead.
>> Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss.
>> Music's off, guys. Let me know how it is. Hopefully, it's all good.
>> Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year.
>> Just turn your volume up a little bit.
Today's call will be led by Straf Stelnik, Take 2's chairman and chief executive officer, Carl Slateoff, our president, and Laney Goldstein, our chief financial officer. We will be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal security. No worries, man. Daddy's based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by an >> Wait till Strauss comes on live. will come on any moment now.
>> Applications to update these forward looking statements. Actual operating results may vary significantly from these forward statements based on a variety.
>> We can now confirm GTS has been cancelled. Release table tabletop tennis including the company's most recent annual report on form 10K and quarterly report on form 10Q including the risk summarized in the section entitled risk factors. I'd also like to note that unless otherwise stated, all numbers we will be discussing today are GAP and all comparisons are year-over-year.
Additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release, including the items that our management uses internally to adjust our GAP financial results in order to evaluate our operating performance. Our press release also contains a reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measure to the most comparable gap measure. In addition, we have posted to our website a slide deck that visually presents our results and financial outlook. Our press release and filings with the SEC may be obtained from our website at take2ames.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Strauss.
>> Strauss, boys, let's go.
>> Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that we concluded fiscal year 2026 with excellent results, including fourth quarter net bookings of $ 1.58 billion, which was above the high end of our guidance range. Net bookings for the full fiscal year were $6.7 billion, which was approximately $750 million above the initial guidance we provided last May. NBA 2K delivered record netbookings and recurrent consumer spending. Zinga achieved its highest level of netbooking since we acquired the business in 2022.
And the Grand Theft Auto Series once again exceeded our expectations and continued to drive significant net bookings and deep engagement with its passionate community of players.
Fiscal 2027 is poised to be a breakout year for Take 2, led by the November 19th release of Grand Theft Auto 6, arguably the most anticipated entertainment property of all time. And we're excited that Rockstar Games will start their marketing campaign this summer.
Our initial financial outlook for fiscal 2027 includes record net bookings of 8 to8.2 billion. This reflects meaningful growth over last year led by the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 along with a successful execution across our entire portfolio.
We expect to sustain this higher level of scale and generate strong cash flows well into the future as we release our robust long-term development pipeline and capitalize on new opportunities across our highly established multiaceted business.
>> Let's go, boys. Let's go.
>> Highlights from the quarter. I'll begin with our fantastic mobile performance.
Tomb Blast grew approximately 25% year-over-year as Peak introduced new events and features, including Temple Guardians, Deep Quest, and refined level experiences.
Match Factory continued to perform with players responding positively to its live service execution.
>> Yo, thanks for the membership, man.
Thank you so much. Much appreciate, Roger. Thank you. Thank you.
>> Such as the collectible album.
Empires and Puzzles outpaced our forecast and grew 5% over last year, driven by a robust slate of in-game events celebrating the title's 9th anniversary.
Color Block Jam grew 15% year-over-year and remains the highest grossing title in Rollik's history.
>> End of June. Interesting. 11 delivered its strongest quarter ever after 16 years in market driven by superb performance of the Bundesliga and live operations innovation.
>> I will leave for >> 2K's mobile offerings posted another solid quarter with WWE supercard reaching nearly 39 million lifetime downloads.
>> Just one sec.
>> 2K Mobile continuing to >> I'm just putting it down slightly. So this is coming from uh Jason >> Shri.
So Shri goes here.
>> Pre-orders typically start alongside marketing which will begin this summer which we know it's going to be this summer.
>> I don't know where this is coming from.
What game roll post? I'm assuming IG oh variety. Okay. But summer technically begins at the end of June. Okay.
>> Additional mobile titles from our portfolio.
>> Interesting. So it might be a few more weeks boys before we get anything. We'll have to wait and see. of course, >> and enhancing the end-to-end user experience, which is generating improvements in conversion and customer loyalty.
As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, were even more confident in the sustainability and growth profile of this platform. The Grand Theft Auto series continues to outpace expectations significantly and demonstrate incredible momentum leading up to the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 on November 19th.
Recurring consumer spending grew 5% year-over-year with strong engagement in GTA Online driven by a safe house in the hills, one of the best performing updates in its history.
>> Safe house in the hills. This content offering provided a wide range of community requested features, including mansion properties, the return of Michael D. Santa from Grand Theft Auto 5, all new missions, vehicles, exclusive GTA Plus benefits, and the powerful new Rockstar Mission Creator that allows content creators to make their own GTA experiences.
Sales of Grand Theft Auto 5 advanced further with nearly 230 million units sold in to date.
>> 230 million. GC Plus continues to see growth year-over-year, >> led by the holiday update and highly attractive monthly benefits, such as the inclusion of NBA 2K26 in its games library.
In addition, Rockstar Games Red Dead Redemption 2 achieved its highest level of annual unit sales since its launch year with over 85 million units.
>> During the quarter, our sports offerings also performed.
>> 85 million. NBA 2K26 continued to expand its audience. To date, the title has sold in over 10 million units, representing a 5% increase over NBA 2K25.
Recurring consumer spending grew 10% as we benefited from higher daily active users in games played per user. In keeping game of all time on innovation, Visual Concepts launched season 5 for NBA 2K26, their first ever college themed offering. Dub Dub >> featuring 16 iconic universities which was welcomed by NBA 2K's vast community and provided a glimpse of what's to come in college basketball for next year and beyond. I'd like to thank our partners at the NBA and the NBA Players Association for their continued engagement and support in our collective mission.
On March 13th, 2K and Visual Concepts launched WWE 2K26, which was wellreceived by critics and consumers alike.
>> Yes, it's live. Recurren spending% year-over-year and more than 85 million matches played, an increase of 7% compared to WWE 2K25.
2K is supporting the title with multiple updates through its ringside pass. Czech Republic.
>> Thank Nick Khan and his team at TKO for their unwavering support and partnership as we continue to evolve this series for fans of the game.
>> Tour 2K25 enjoyed a fantastic resurgence. 2K captured an influx of new players and drove strong organic interest by aligning season 5 with the start of the PGA Tour season in January and including the >> Damn Rock's about to hold three of the top five most played games. literally 60 million rounds of golf representing over the third quarter.
>> We sport I think >> we support the franchise throughout the year with several more content updates.
>> In closing, we're incredibly excited by the promise of our GTA 5 and Minecraft players, our organization, and our shareholders.
>> This year has the opportunity to be a major inflection point for our company.
>> Yeah, I know. I know.
>> Groundbreaking entertainment experiences, creative and operational excellence, and record net bookings with our flexible balance sheet.
>> So, barbecue user barbecue. The game is on track, man.
>> Will generate over $1 billion in operating cash flow.
>> On track for this year, for those new that are joining, >> we're extraordinarily well positioned to take measured creative and Tetris. Yes.
>> Pursue a creative M&A.
>> But Tetris you can play anywhere really, right? same as greater creative capabilities and operational efficiencies across our organization.
>> Let's go.
>> I'm immensely proud of our teams and exceedingly optimistic that we'll continue to drive greater success and shareholder value for the long term.
>> I'll now turn the call over to Carl.
>> Thanks, Drops. I'd like to thank our teams for another strong quarter and for laying the groundwork for an exciting chapter.
>> Um I don't know what time it is over in um >> we extremely optimistic. Afternoon time I think orcludes afternoon through fiscal 2029.
>> In the interest of precision we are now only counting no tech doesn't own Tetris. I don't think they do >> specifically scheduled for worldwide launch.
>> I don't know who owns Tetris window.
>> Isn't it like >> teams continue to develop Tetris? They might own Tetrised in this outlook some of which may be added to our multi.
>> Who owns Tetris? Fiscal 2027 is set to be a milestone year led by the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 November 19th.
>> We plan to release six additional titles during the fiscal year, including two mobile titles, three sports titles, which are NBA 2K27, PGA Tour 2K27, and WWE 2K27, and one platform extension. Our labels will also continue to provide new content and experiences that drive engagement and recurring consumer spending across many of our >> 640 a.m. Martinez 6:40 in the morning.
>> Looking ahead, we currently expect to deliver 22 titles throughout fiscal 2028 and 2029, including one mobile title, five sports titles.
>> I don't think so, Gazam, but they would have released a trailer already by now.
>> 13 core existing IPs. It >> probably come over these next few weeks, and six remakes, remasters, and platform extensions.
We look forward to sharing more about our groundbreaking pipeline which we believe will drive a new period of growth and long-term returns for our shareholders.
>> I'll now turn the call over to Laney.
>> Laney Goldstein.
>> Good afternoon everyone.
>> Good afternoon everyone.
>> 26 was an exceptional year for Take 2 as we achieved record net bookings and operating performance. Yes, I slept. I got some good sleep significantly outperform the initial news provided last May as our teams maintain on product innovation and delivering the highest levels of quality and value. I'd like to thank our teams for their passion and dedication as we embark on this milestone year marked by the highly anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto 6 and strength across our core businesses.
>> I love hearing that every time. Turning to our results, we delivered fourth quarter net bookings of $ 1.58 billion, which was above the high end of our guidance range of 1.51 to 1.56 billion.
This reflected better than expected performance from the Grand Theft Auto series, several mobile titles, and the Red Dead Redemption series. Recurrent consumer spending growth was strong, increasing 7% over last year and accounting for 82% of net bookings. This included 7% growth for mobile and 5% growth for Grand Theft Auto Online, both of which surpassed our expectations. NBA 2K increased%, which represented one of the strongest quarters in franchise history, but was softer than anticipated as trends moderated from the extreme growth we achieved during the second and third quarters of the year.
>> JPS games, how you doing, man?
>> Launcher for school. Yes, how you doing, man? BGA Tour 2K for switch 2 and WWE 2K26.
Gap net revenue increased 6% to $1.68 billion while cost of revenue declined 5% $741 million.
Operating expenses decreased significantly to $928 million.
>> Zonic says pre-orders for JT should be expected alongside the market campaign that starts this summer. Good boys and acquired intangible assets on a management basis. Operating >> legacy killer HD thinks around late July.
>> Some people think in late June I think anywhere from June to July we should get something boys >> Henderson thinks August we'll be getting it in those any any time in those months June July August hopefully June of >> our guidance range of 6.65 65 to $6.7 billion. Recurrent consumer spending grew 17% and accounted for 78% of net bookings. NBA 2K grew over 30%. Mobile increased 13% and Grand Theft Auto Online increased 6%. All sharply exceeding our initial >> June 21st. Are you serious? Why couldn't they have the summer marketing starting in early June?
>> 624.
>> Yeah, I know. I I don't know. We don't look we don't know what's going to happen for sure. Really fantastic >> based off what Strauss has said there.
What he's hinted at. 63 million in capital expenditures which due to the timeable to our forecast >> late June >> gap net revenue rose 18% to $6.65 billion and cost of revenue increased 11% to $2.8 8 billion operating expenses decreased significantly to $3.9 billion due to the impairment charges that I mentioned previously from last year.
>> Boy, it's literally a month away. We don't >> on a management basis.
>> We're not too far away. We're not too far away, which represent >> all this waiting will come to an end. It will come to an end. Trust me.
>> Today, we are providing our initial less than fiscal 2027.
>> We project net bookings to range from 8 billion to 8.2 billion. 8 billion >> which reflects approximately 20% growth over fiscal 2026 primarily due to the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 on November 19th along with successful execution across our entire portfolio. The largest contributors to Netbookings are expected to be the Grand Theft Auto series, NBA 2K, Tomb Blast, Mash Factory, Empires and Puzzles, the Red Dead Redemption series, Words with Friends, Color Block Jam, and Zinger Poker. We expect recurrent consumer spending to be flat in fiscal 2026 and to represent 65% of net bookings. Our recurrent consumer spending forecast assumes NBA 2K is up high single digits. The Grand Theft Auto series is up and mobile is down due to last year's success of Color Black Jam and our assumption that trends will moderate for several of Zinga's mature mobile titles. We expect the net bookings break down any reason to flex on us 35% Zinda and 29% UK.
>> We are forecasting operating cash flow $1 billion and we expect to be in a net cash position by the end of the fiscal year. We plan to deploy approximately $200 million of capital expenditures for game technology and office buildouts. We expect gap net revenue to range from 7.9 to 8.1 billion.
>> We're almost there, man. Just give us trailer three. Yes, I know. That's all we need right now.
>> That's all we need.
>> Our total operating expenses are expected to range from a bit more waiting, boys. A bit moreion on a management basis.
>> At least this game is coming out later this year. At least it's coming out this year. No more delays.
>> Sick of delays, man. Thank God.
>> Leverage over fiscal 2026.
This growth is largely due to higher marketing expense to support the launch of brand.
>> Hasn't been delayed >> and our new mobile releases as well as higher R&D costs. So got officially confirmed before the call and confirmed in the call.
>> We project net bookings to range from 1.32 to 1.37 billion compared to $1.42 billion in the first quarter last year.
>> The largest contributors to net bookings are expected to be NBA 2K, the Grand Theft Auto series, Tomb Blast, >> every time November 19th is mentioned, >> the Red Dead Redemption series, Color Black Jam, Words with Friends, and Zinga Poker. We project current consumer spending to decline by approximately 3%.
Which assumes high >> I assume we get the third trailer when the marketing campaign starts in the summer mobile >> goes come on yes go bro let's go from 1.45 to$ 1.5 billion and cost of revenue to range from 578 to $594 million.
Operating expenses are planned to range >> uh physical chemistry. Yeah. Yeah. Most likely. Yes. due to the marketing spending >> on a management basis operating >> probably some other things as well of course but yeah that's will be one component >> driven by a modest increase in personnel costs in closing fiscal 2027 will introduce a new level of operating performance which we expect to sustain well into the future driven by a robust pipeline and expansion opportunities across our core franchises with their focus on incorporating new technologies and tools we feel confident in our ability to scale our business generate operational efficiency and leverage econom >> ramen noodles.
>> Thank you. I'll now turn the call back to Strauss.
>> Strauss, let's go. Strauss.
>> Thanks, Laney and Carl. On behalf and Carl management team, I'd like to thank our colleagues around the world for their commitment to excellence and to our strategy of being the most creative, the most innovative, and the most efficient company in the entertainment industry. To our shareholders, I want to express our appreciation for your continued support.
We'll now take your questions.
>> That is onic. Question time. Q&A. Boys, listen.
>> At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, simply press star one. Again, we will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster.
Your first question comes from the line of Eric Handler with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for the question.
Um Laney, just a couple things uh within the within the guidance. Um looks like at least on a non-GAAP basis, uh your operating expenses are looking, let's call it for round number purposes, about $3.8 billion. That's a $300 million incremental increase on a year-over-year basis. How much of that is due to marketing? And when you look at sort of like the trend for the next couple years for GNA and R&D, what do those trajectories look like? I assume they'll be much smaller than the revenue growth.
>> Um yes, that's correct. Um so we expect to have a lot of leverage over the next couple of years as we continue to scale the business. And for the 300 million higher for this um coming year, about half of that is for selling and marketing expenses for the entire um company as we um have significant marketing for our entire pipeline of titles that are coming out this year.
>> Okay, that's helpful. And then as a followup, um, how should we think about RCS, you know, in once GTA 6 comes out?
Um, how are you sort of thinking about the trajectory of GTA Online when when that game is launched?
>> Good question.
>> Um, Rockstar will provide more details on the GTA series when they're ready to talk about that.
>> Oh, boo. Yeah, I I think you're asking though to what do we expect will happen with recurrent consumer spending regarding GTA Online? And um look, I I think I think to to say that everyone has been pleased by the ongoing trajectory of GTA Online, Red Dead Online, the sales of GTA 5, the sales of Red Dead would be a great understatement. These titles have proven to be vastly more resilient than anyone expected and I think it's a reflection of the quality of the work that Rockstar has done. Um despite the fact that Grand Theft Auto 5 is now um has been in market for three console generations continues to sell. It's now up to 230 million units. Red Dead is up to 85 million units. So, you know, we're we're so extraordinarily pleased with how Rockstar's titles have performed. It's difficult to know exactly how Grand Theft Auto Online will do after the release of Grand Theft Auto 6, but certainly it will stay in market and certainly there are many many consumers who love the title.
>> Interesting.
>> Thank you. Very helpful.
>> That confirms GT Line's still going to be live after GTS comes from the line of Colin Sebastian with Baird. Please go ahead, >> which we expected anyways.
>> Thanks. Congratulations on the year. I have a couple of questions as well. Um I guess first off as as cash flow in flex um in the per the guidance for the coming fiscal year. How are you guys thinking about cap allocation between returning to shareholders versus other uses? And I have a followup.
>> So um you know this will sound boringly consistent with our answer to this question. It's the same as it has been for for as long as we've been in the position of having positive cash flow and positive cash balances. There there are three uses of of our capital here.
First to support organic growth. This company's story has largely been an organic growth story and uh we certainly have expectations for organic growth and fiscal 27 and we believe that fiscal 27 is setting a new a new benchmark a new standard for this company going forward.
That's all organic. Um but as you can see from our numbers we have to invest to be in a position where we can grow in that way and our balance sheet and our P&L allows us to do just that. Well that will continue. The second use of our capital is very selectively when it makes strategic sense and let me emphasize this when it's a creative um we are willing to engage in in inorganic uh opportunities. The most recent meaningful one was of course the acquisition of Zinga in 2022 for $9.7 billion in cash and stock and then more recently the acquisition of Gearbox.
>> And so, you know, I'm I'm proud to say that all of our acquisitions have turned out to be a creative example over, you know, nearly two decade period. That's pretty breathtaking for corporations, not generally the case. And I think that's because we're immensely disciplined. uh you're you're not going to see us doing deals hand over fist, but assuming our balance sheet continues to improve, uh I think you could imagine uh more inorganic uh growth in the future as well. Uh and we've already said in this release today that we expect to be in a net cash position by the end of this school year. And finally, we return capital to the shareholders when it makes sense. So far, we've done that through share buybacks. Um and they are opportunity.
>> Rich people talk. Yeah, boys. Literally rich people talk.
>> Makes sense for our shareholders when they are executed. Uh all that business lingo.
>> Our last buyback was done at $158 a share. We'll see how the stock opens tomorrow, but I think no matter what that's that that was pretty good plan on our side. So look, um like all stocks, they they move around different price points. Um our stock traded down. Read that quote, boys, while Strauss is talking.
>> In the last six weeks and um you know there is an opportunity to return capital to the shareholders when it makes sense.
>> Thanks for the reminder on those Strauss. I guess maybe as a followup uh and and maybe some of the structural issues in the industry including sales of current gen consoles. I'm just curious how that impacts, you know, your thinking or assumptions in terms of establishing pricing and and pre-order uh expectations for for titles like GTA 6 in the coming year. Thank you.
>> Oh, good question.
>> Uh sorry, what would the relationship be from your point of view?
>> Uh number of the install base of hardware may not be as high in in this current console generation um as it might otherwise have been. uh you know certainly value price points for certain titles have have done well versus premium pricing. Um so those considerations >> look when we look at pricing I would not say we look at it in the context of the install base. Uh we absolutely look at pricing in the context of of the property itself. And so, uh, what we want to do in every situation, whether that's console, mobile, PC, frontline, or catalog, is deliver to the consumer vastly more entertainment value than what we charge. We want the consumer to have a great experience. And we think a consumer experience is the intersection of what you get and what you pay for it.
Um, and probably a great example of that is Mafia, the Old Country, which is a terrific title. Um, it but it's not, you know, it's not a 100 hour experience.
It's not a 50-hour experience. And so we priced the title at $50 and consumers were thrilled and we had a massive hit on our hands. Now I suspect we could have priced it at a higher level. We wanted to make sure that consumers loved it and part of loving something is feeling good about what you pay for it.
>> H interesting.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Doug Cro with TD Cohen. Please go ahead >> Doug Croitz.
Hey, uh I wanted to ask in the context of your your guidance that mobile you're you're assuming is down this year >> based on uh some attenuation of the performance of older games. Is that based on anything you're you're seeing in the year to date or is that more of a hey these are older titles let's be prudent in our outlook? uh you know similar to I think for many years you guys sort of said we expect GT online to be down because it's a many year old live service game and then it would typically do better. Can you can you just give some some context around that and then also um what you might be assuming for your two new mobile launches within that guide. Thank you.
>> So um it's a very fair question. and we had a great year at Zingga and um and I think it's more the way you characterize it which is we're not prepared to guide to you know continually beating expectations. So, I just turned down a little bit. They're just talking about mobile and that. Um, >> so at the moment, guys, uh, the game is still on track for November 19th this year. If anyone that that's new that's joined the stream, we are still on track for GTA 6 to release this year. No further delays.
>> You know, last was up 25% and a very old title. Uh, so we do have opportunities to exceed our expectations now and then.
Um but you know this is our best estimate sitting here today. As far as our expectations around new launches you know we in the mobile side particularly we never anticipate huge numbers because it's just impossible to do so. Hit ratios are just too low. So our guidance would typically reflect our expectations around the marketing spend in the year.
>> Um because we don't um we would never guide around doing something silly. you know, in the mobile business, if you're if you're getting bad immediate results from a marketing spend, you stop doing it. And our dev costs are pretty manageable in the mobile world. So, I would say um unlike say console where you know you have a big release going through I I'm not going to give you the example you want. So, we have basketball coming up how many units it sold so far, 10 million units sold in today. We know the prior year, the year before that. We have a sense of the market. Like, we can estimate that pretty well within a band.
or with mobile, we just don't have the ability to do that. So, I think >> I can't ask any questions. Ricardo, I wish I could.
>> Daddy Znik, where's trailer 3, mate?
Where's trailer 3, buddy?
>> I wish, but I can't. Only big firms like JP Morgan and Chase and all that can um yeah, get screen questions.
>> Comes from the line of Cory Carpenter with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
>> JP Morgan, >> I had two questions on NBA 2K time perfectly. Clearly, you know, I think record year for the franchise this year, but hoping you could expand a bit on the trends you saw in the quarter moderated you said in the prepared remarks a little more than you'd expected. So, what did you see there? And then and Carl, maybe could you talk a bit about the engagement that you saw with the initial college basketball roll out?
Thank you.
>> Who cares about NBA?
Imagine you actually called him Daddy Sonic. Boy, Daddy Sonic, bro, mate, where's trail three? So for um for MBA um this was one of our strongest quarters um for Q4 in the franchise history. Um in terms of looking at our expectations, this reflects the extreme growth of Q2 and Q3 where we saw a high concentration of spending from our most engaged players early in the year which left less upside opportunity heading into Q4. Um so that's >> hey PV brow awesome if that could drop through as quick as possible considering I'm from Australia. Winter begins here in the first of June. I thought summer starts first of June.
>> We are very excited about our college release for season five. Yeah, >> I would describe it at this point as it's >> I'll come back to that what's to come.
We did a deal with that featured 16 universities. Um it's basically validated our expectations.
>> So that's the the CFO chief financial officer >> us going forward.
>> We really care when Strauss is talking.
>> Stay tuned. It's very exciting for us and we're >> talking and and maybe as a followup Strauss on on the last earnings call um Google Genie had just launched in beta. You know, there's been some >> conversations more recently around the ability for AI to perhaps create GTA 6 in a couple of months. You know, I know this is a bit of a generic high level question you've touched on before, but just given this remains a pretty big debate among investors, thought it'd be helpful to hear your latest views around what you're seeing.
>> AI can't do that, boys. AI can't do that to, you know, change the gaming industry and take >> AI can't make a GTA 6.
>> It's BS.
>> Um, we remain enormously optimistic. You know, technology helped build this company. Video games are created largely inside computers and always have been.
When I started in the video game business in 1993, we were making 32-bit games. Um, and they certainly look anything like they do today. And that's all driven by tech. I think the the um sort of confusion surrounds a belief that somehow more efficient asset creation puts us at some disadvantage or creates a competitive advantage for someone else. And I I don't just don't believe that's the case to the extent that technology allows um anyone to do a better job in asset creation naturally will avail ourselves of the same technology. If you take a look at the tech in market that is currently licensed um for the creation of video games, it's licensed broadly. No one exclusively licenses technology for video games. So if if a competitor has access to AI and that allows someone to do something better, quicker, um cheaper, then we would have access to to the same thing. The second point that I've made that I would, you know, I would stand behind is um uh is that the um asset creation is not the same as hit creation. So, you know, the entire story around the the Gemini release was, "Wow, you can create assets that look like video games more easily than you could before." I hope that's true because that'll benefit us naturally. You know, we have three-part strategy. Be the most creative, be the most innovative, be the most efficient. It seems to me that even if it doesn't help with creativity, it certainly should help with efficiency and innovation. So, that could that could be thrilling, but we do have to remind ourselves asset creation is not the same as hit creation. And the best example of that is, you know, there are thousands of new mobile releases a year, but there's a handful of new mobile hits a year and and we make some of them. Um, despite the fact that everyone has access to the same tech because everyone lic licenses exactly the same underlying technology for the creation of mobile titles as we do like. So, um, I I remain highly optimistic. Now, I'll give you a real world example. while I was visiting one of our studios and um they showed me some advertisements that they were putting together to advertise their games and um these were liveaction ads um and they were funny and cute 15 to 30 second ad units that you've seen a zillion times um and uh they were all created with AI licensed AI legal AI and um the script was done in-house for free well by you know people colleagues or companies >> good photo yeah And the software was used, AI software was used. The entire cost of making the spot was zero. And previously we hired third party companies those with human beings. And those spots could cost 2550 $100,000.
>> Now please note we, you know, not only were we not interested in reducing our headcount to make this happen. We didn't have the opportunity to reduce our headcount to make this happen. The entire marketing team at this particular studio is two people. They're doing a great job.
allowed them to do is more efficient, make great stuff and do it cheaper.
>> Um, and um, you know, this is all a benefit to our company.
>> Wow.
>> Thank you.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Chris Schul with UBS. Please go ahead.
>> Thank you, Strauss. I believe it was a few quarters ago you mentioned your expectations for GTA 6 continue to increase. any updates you can provide on your general expectations and levels of confidence for the franchise based on the indicators you have at this point and how do you expect that this title will perform relative to GTA 5 and that Laney maybe I know there's a lot of noise to margins this year with the marketing and the software amort but I believe I heard you said there's a lot of leverage over the next few years but can you just remind us how you're thinking about the ability to return to the historic margin levels that take 2 used to see thank you >> um you know I don't recall the the comment you alluded to I I'm pretty much I think I've always said the same thing, which is, you know, we're all, how could we not be? We're all extraordinarily excited about what Rockstar on Games is working on. We're all incredibly enthusiastic about the upcoming release.
And equally, you know, this is a management team that never claims success before it occurs. And I'm pretty sure that every time we've had the luxury of having a conversation about an upcoming release that looked good, I've said, you know, we absolutely never appine on how high is up. We certainly work toward the best result and hope for the best result, but you know that that is out of our hands. What's in the hands of Rockstar from a development point of view and a marketing point of view is trying to make the best entertainment property they possibly can and then bringing it effectively to to consumers all over the world. That's what we aim to do and we do feel really really good about it.
Margin improvement remains a key priority in our financial strategy, but we recognize that margins will fluctuate over time based on a variety of factors.
In fiscal 2027, we're reaching a new level of operating performance, which we expect to sustain well into the future driven by a robust pipeline and expansion opportunities across our core franchises. So as we operate at this new level and generate operational efficiencies um through reduction efforts and leveraging new technology >> they ain't doing nothing in the summer that's what they tell you so you can keep your hope no they will be man it's officially confirmed by Strauss to be starting this summer the marketing >> operating expense leverage it represents >> like it's officially coming from take rockstar's parent company >> organically and inorganically um we've mentioned previously that gross margins of many of our titles are affected by the increasing cost of development so we've been making many structural improvements um including the um >> look at that stock price damn that shot up crazy >> so you've seen some of that go coming through the P&L in the last couple of years and the leverage we've seen in the last year in terms of our operating expenses um also the DTOC efforts and mobile that's also working um towards improving our margins um so this was a year where we scaled the business meaningfully and we achieved strong leverage on our expense structure so we'll continue to do that as we um look into the future.
>> Thank you.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Moroc with Raymond James.
Please go ahead.
>> Raymond James.
>> Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Um maybe one on the Rockstar mission creator. I know Strauss called that out in the uh in the prepared remarks as an interesting factor. I guess are there any learnings from the early days of that and some of the recent missions that were created as you look to scale UGC and some of your Rockstar properties? And then I have a follow-up.
>> Look, um we're trying to meet players where they are and to the extent that people want to have a hand in creation, there are numerous opportunities, uh for them to do so. So, um, you know, I I just think it's incredibly exciting and, uh, and our company embraces these advances. So, you know, we're not we're not precious about what we do here.
We're openminded >> 100% Stanbury PR training 101 business, you know, we're where uh, this started as sort of a business that was outside of our four walls and, you know, and now it's a business that's inside our four walls and and we're thrilled that it is.
Okay, thank you. And then maybe one more on mobile if I could. I know that there has been some kind of correlation between uh the mobile business and and macroeconomic factors in the past. I guess what level of conservatism might you be baking into the guide around general economic conditions as it relates to the mobile business? Thank you.
Well, look, we um you know, we're not economists, although we certainly point of view about where the economy is going, and that is one of the factors we consider when we build guidance.
>> Yeah, a lot of buzzwords, a lot of business lingo, things that I don't >> Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Cost with Morgan Stanley, please.
>> Lot of questions. Morgan Stanley, a lot of questions really.
>> Thanks for taking the question. Uh Strauss, there's a comment you made in the prepared remarks about your expectation to sustain higher levels of scale going forward. Uh just just given the potential for uh Grand Theft Auto's performance this year, uh you know, that's that's a high bar to clear going forward. So, as investors think about the opportunity to sustain your scale off of that space, how should they think about the mix between just an ongoing significant revenue contribution from from Grand Theft Auto um versus the the pipeline that you went into some some good detail in the prepare remarks discussing and then I have one followup.
Thank you. So, >> it reminds me of my SATs. It's it's box D. All of the above.
What?
>> Okay.
>> What happened? What?
>> Your next question comes from the line of >> I'm so confused. I had no clue what happened there.
>> Please go ahead.
>> Another question.
>> Yeah, great. Um, maybe just diving in again on mobile. Um, I mean, it's just been impressive to see continued growth of Toon Blast and >> who cares about biggest drivers for the segment. Um I was just hoping you could go into some detail about the unique drivers across those franchises that you think have had sort of enabled them to continue growing uh this far after the initial launch.
>> Thanks.
>> Well, well actually very different. So Tomb Blast's been around for a really long time. Matt Factory is relatively new. So Blast Match Factory still in growth mode.
>> Um and we we've projected that it would moderate.
>> Does anyone play Tomb Blast?
>> Um Tomb Blast is a legacy title. And with regards to Tomb Blast, what you're seeing is um you know a title where the consumers who are involved are getting more and more involved and that's a reflection of the content that that Peak is putting into the game and offers that are made to consumers. So basically with regard to a legacy title where you may not have a sharp growth curve on DAUs, you will have um an effort to actually serve the consumers we have much more effectively. And I think that's what you're seeing in Blast Match Factory is still in pretty steep early. It's not that old a title. So very different. We need to have, you know, we need to be muscular in both areas. We need to be able to, you know, to run our live services businesses really well for a long, long time. And Zingga does a phenomenal job at that. But by the way, you know, so does Rockstar, right? GTA Online is a live services business. It's it's 13 years old. Red Dead Online is is a, you know, legacy live services business. Um, so NBA 2K online is a live services business. You know, we have to do everything well here. It's what makes this place an exciting place to work.
You know, we've got a pipeline of frontline titles. We got to turn them into hits. We don't always >> consumers. I know to try.
>> I know.
>> We have a live services business that I just mentioned. We have to optimize those um across both mobile console and PC. And then of course we have a catalog. Uh, and when you add it all up and we do a good job across the board, you get the kind of year that we got last year. And we now expect to make a meaningful step up, you know, obviously driven largely by the launch of GTA 6, but also driven by performance of the rest of the business. And then we expect to set that as a new base from which to grow, and that's a reflection of firing on all cylinders. Undoubtedly, we'll have some lapses along the way. We don't know where the lapses will be, but you know, if history is any guide, we'll also have some some titles that will meaningfully beat expectations going forward. And part of our three-part strategy of being the most creative, most innovative, and the most efficient is indeed to be the most innovative. And if you look at the history of the company, you know, we've been a leader in innovations, whether that's cross-developing, development, or marketing. And I I have no doubt in the coming years we'll be able to innovate further. And I don't know exactly what form that'll take, but I would just, you know, note that this company doesn't look anything like it did 19 years ago, despite still being in the interactive entertainment business. Lots of what we do here, didn't even exist back then.
And this industry, never mind the company, is still on a sharp growth curve.
>> Uh, doubtful. Definitely they dropped the trailer after them >> and the opportunities to do new things and bring those new things to people in new ways.
>> Helpful contact. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the question Jason Bzines with lot of questions today.
>> Go ahead.
>> A lot of questions.
>> I just I just had a quick historical question. um in the past when you've been confronted with, you know, these these big titles like, I don't know, whether it was GTA four or five or the last two Red Deads, how how how accurate would you say your firm, your management team was in terms of predicting, you know, how well these titles would do? Were there some that sort of disappointed or others that really beat or were they sort of all within a pretty tight confidence interval in terms of your own internal expectations? So, with regards to the titles you mentioned, as it happened, they all performed better than we had expected. We've had plenty of other titles that disappointed, candidly. Um, thankfully, not of late.
>> Okay. Uh, and and they tend to be few and far between, but it would not be accurate to say that our expectations are always exceeded, not not accurate in the least. And and that's why, you know, we are, I think, appropriately humble around here. This is the entertainment business. It is unforgiving. Um, we try our hardest. We do not always succeed.
Understood. Thank you for that caller.
>> Very short answer.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Alec Brundel with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
>> Wells Fargo.
>> Yeah. Hey, thanks so much for the question. I appreciate it. I think I think I want to maybe try to ask Colin Sebastian's question in a little bit of a different way. I think that there's been a lot of conversations in the industry over the last several months about the growth of Roblox, um the growth of lower price games on Steam in the $10 to $20 price point. Um it seems like it's mostly driven by younger gamers. Um you know, obviously Take 2 doesn't participate meaningfully in those categories. You have, you know, a couple of lower priced games in the $50 range like Mafia. I think the question is like what is the level of confidence that the newer cohort of gamers will graduate into more premium AAA experiences over time? Like I think I think the question is like is the young person that's playing Roblox are they going to want to play $80 Grand Theft Auto 6 when they grow up or might they be habituated onto lower fidelity titles? Any thoughts there would be helpful?
>> So actually it's the contrary. um when entertainment properties are aimed at at children um you know I I don't know if you have children but uh right around the age of like 10 or 11 they do not want to be children anymore they want to be um teenagers um and uh so one of the issues and this is not by way of being critical of anyone else in the industry but one of the issues with children's programming whether that's linear entertainment or interactive entertainment is that you know children reach a certain point they don't want to be engaged with kids programming anymore, even if it's appealing to them.
Um, so it's not that um a certain kind of kidsoriented interactive entertainment is necessarily a feeder to what we do in certain parts of this company. Remember, we also do make plenty of entertainment around here that's available for all audiences. But with regard to our Mrated titles, um it's not necessarily the case that something else is a feeder to it. It's it's a different business, but it is a business that is only available if you're 17 or above. And I think if you engage with interactive entertainment and you're 17 or above, it's very difficult for me to imagine that you wouldn't be incredibly interested in RM rated titles, specifically one that is coming up.
>> Correct. Agreed. Agreed.
>> Perfect. Thanks so much.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs.
Please go ahead.
>> Goldman Sachs.
>> Thank you so much uh for taking the question. Maybe building on on two of the topics we've talked about on the call so far with respect to mobile advertising and building uh additional optimization around user acquisition.
How you think about the signals as more of mobile advertising becomes driven by machine learning uh with respect to either being able to deploy more dollars at a higher return on ad spend or possibly becoming more efficient with respect to advertising and possibly a quick followup.
Well, we certainly try to do that. You know, we work with AppLin and uh and and we are trying to optimize uh of course our return on ad spend. Um and and sometimes things are going really well in the market and other times we're frustrated in the market depending on >> uh there was nothing in regards to the price. Nothing in regards to price >> example when we really couldn't get out there and spend because you know we didn't we could not find inventory.
>> GTA 64. Hi mate. Have I missed something? Um not really.
>> Tag me in the Yeah, I'll go check that now. GTA 6. the payback period on what we're spending and we have very tight guidelines about that. Um and but you have to be on top of it all the time because when you spend money in mobile as you know you're you're spending it based on an expectation that you'll earn it back over a period of time. That expectation is based on uh prior history but prior history isn't always um dispositive with regard to what happens in the future. So we are constantly on a daily basis tuning up our models that will inform how we spend money on user acquisition. As I said, sometimes it's greater, sometimes it's lower. We also have this weird anomaly which I'm sure you're aware of which is if we're out of the UA business for a period of time because we don't like it, of course we make more money because there's no UA that's spent that comes back the same day in its entirety. Sometimes we get a really quick payback period. We have had experiences where the payback period has been as quick as 90 days. And uh I don't I don't think we talk publicly about our expectations around the payback period.
>> Who cares about mobile gaming? No one really cares about mobile gaming >> conservative than most. To answer your question, are there new opportunities to be more efficient in this area? Yesah.
Of course, it's not lost on anyone that after Apple changed their attribution characteristics, the entire industry was challenged. But you can see from our own most likely will >> with Zinga last year that we have surmounted those challenges and we feel pretty good about how the business operates now.
>> Great. And if I could just ask one more um with respect to your approach to go to market with DTC any new learnings about what the opportunity set might look like or the ceiling of that opportunity might be to grow uh the percentage of mix from DTC over time.
>> Yo Vice, how you doing man? Thank you for joining. I've been saying for a long time that I thought sort of the competitive landscape and the regulatory landscape would be favorable in the background overall distribution cost taking overall dist distribution cost our DTOC cost which is materially lower than third party cost multiplied by the share of market related to DCTC and we have said that you know that share has been growing we have not talked about what percent it is or where it's going what we want to make sure though explain it.
>> Number one, we want to be consumers. The goal of this company is not to control distribution. The goal of this company is to make >> intro screen music theme confirmed.
>> However they want them and of course to do so on economic terms. We value >> GTA in the background >> we especially in the background. One of the computers marketing.
>> Maybe it is boys. Maybe it is. And we understand that there's a value in the marketing that third party retailers can provide and that would intersect with how much they charge us for access to their consumers. So the more value a third party retailer provides to us from a marketing point of view >> and GTA 6 confirmed >> more comfortable we are working with them. Uh at the same time there is a role for direct to consumer opportunities for us it's all of the >> GTA 6 out tomorrow man. Oh I wish I wish tomorrow. Five more months, man. Less than six months to go.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Mike Hickey with Stone X.
>> Mike Hickey.
>> Let's go, Hickey.
>> Strauss, Carl, Laney, Nicole. Congrats, guys. Great year and a great guy. Very excited. Just two questions. Strauss.
First, I think you referenced before being astonished by Rack Rockstar's um marketing creativity. Um clearly they've they've got precedent there. Can you talk, I guess, philosophically about how uh Rockstar thinks about building anticipation for um a game launch of this scale and how beneficial that marketing effort uh can be in terms of sustaining or even building demand for for around the current GTA ecosystem and if that ancillary benefit is baked into your guidance followup.
>> Good question.
>> Well, look, thanks for the question. You know, I'm obviously not going to go into detail what we've said about marketing.
GTA 6 is marketing will start this summer and as you know, you know, any information around releases and marketing comes from our labels and um that that shouldn't be news to you. That said, um is there do we see in any release, no matter how highly anticipated it is, both the need to market the title and the opportunity in marketing the title? We do. And um you know I was I was asked about this earlier and I because I absolutely refuse to use a title of ours as an example. I use someone else's and I said so there's you know a new release of Mission Impossible and it's starring Tom Cruz. Like we all know what that looks like and I for one am going to see that movie. Like I'm going to see that movie but um Paramont still spends a whole lot of money tomorrow.
>> Siren's going off in the background guys.
>> It's great and it's >> GTA 6 is getting played in the background.
>> That's the story of the entertainment business. So you know I I don't think there's any situation where one can expect to have a massive hit and not engage heavily in the marketing and you know I think that will be true for this company across the board and I think again across the board actually I think I think this company does spectacular marketing and you know whatever we did last year we got to do better this year and whatever we do this year we got to do better next year. We demand it of ourselves and frankly the market demands it of us.
>> Nice. The um on AI Strauss, not to be redundant, you gave a really thorough answer, but maybe just for clarification, do you feel like at this point you've got broad buyin from your your studio leadership around the use of AI tools, not just in in marketing, but in game development? And when you think about um these tools over time, I know you're doing a lot in terms of investing in in product tools related to AI, do you think this will allow you and your studio teams to unlock uh maybe some dormant franchise IP or even new IP that may not have been produced over the last decade plus due to resource constraints?
And if that's the case, would you look to build headcount into that opportunity? Thank you.
Um, I I think that everyone has bought into the possibilities of new technology and I think there are times >> Denny Z is being sorted. Imagine that.
>> Imagine getting sorted >> on the topic.
>> Um, I I've actually never would be so awkward internally of like >> going too fast or doing crazy stuff. I think I'd probably er on the side of being a little more conservative. Um, think about it. You know, the people who are on the front lines of developing here are absolute experts in software, in art, and in video games. And the way they got the job to work at a company like this is because they were on the front lines and because they were innovating and they were highly creative and because they were efficient.
>> They probably will.
>> You have to assume that they're going to be the first people to embrace new technology that allows them to do a better job. That said, we're known for making these beautiful handcrafted titles around here and any technology that we use, I think, will be in the hands of immensely creative people and will take the form of handcrafted. Um, our art is created in computers. It always has been. Um, but our art is created by human beings.
>> Yes, Zestie. Uh, so the game I'll summarize at the end, but >> I'll summarize at the end.
Thanks guys.
>> Your next question comes of Brian Pittz with [ __ ] Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
>> I'm surprised how many questions there are on this call to be honest.
>> Thanks for the questions. I I'll try a couple here. Any additional color you can provide on GTA 6 around your framework for the PC release as well as if the game, >> you know, has any chance of being crossplatform? Also, you know, any best estimates on when we could see a a pre-sale launch for the game? If not, you know, perhaps you could at least provide your best guesstimate of timing on hearing more of these details.
Thanks.
>> Yeah, as you know, look, the PC market's a great market and um it's it's growing for for console type titles and it's a market we serve avidly. Uh and virtually all of our hit titles um end up on all platforms over time. Uh that said, Rockstar Games has announced GTA 6 for console uh only so far and um excited about our November 19th release.
>> Thank you.
>> That was expected.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Ron Song with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.
>> This a really long earning score. This is like much longer than I thought it would be.
>> Uh just turn it back to NBA.
>> Uh it's just NBA. I know Laney talked about the fourth quarter, but as we look at fiscal 27 and >> I'm just staying on unless there's anything more that I don't think there's anything more that really is going to be said, but I I'll keep it going.
>> To being able to sustain like the high single digits, I guess I'm really trying to get out how you think about the stage of growth for monetization and engagement for the basketball franchise.
Uh, noting what Carl said about the state comment. Thanks.
So, we're incredibly proud of um NBA 2K's fiscal 2026 record-breaking results, and we're applying the successful learnings to our strategy for this year.
>> Uh yes, Hamza.
>> So, I'll summarize it at the end, but it's all positive news, ma'am.
>> Locked up like Area 51. Yes. Literally >> strong sustainable RCS growth and are confident in doing so in fiscal 2027.
So, you know, when VC looks at the game each year, they just do not, you know, sort of rest on their laurels. They continue to make this game bigger and better every year and we've seen that um time and time again.
>> No news about trailer 3.
>> Your next question comes from the line of with Oenheimer. Please go ahead.
>> Jesus, how many questions?
>> Thanks for taking my question. I have one question on mobile.
>> Um Zinga has meaningful presence in Turkey with Raleigh and Peak. Can you maybe comment on whether >> just go get me my checks >> uh studios have benefited from the local government policy that favors developers that was released this year.
>> So obviously we've had a lot of great success in the in the Turkish market from a development perspective. Some of our biggest and best titles or studios are in Turkey. Um we have a fantastic relationship with our uh developers there and we we love being in that environment. Um in terms of sort of the government influence ex government opportunities um to to the extent that any that there are opportunities available in any jurisdiction where we operate we would take advantage of those as much as we possibly can. Local jurisdictions are very important business partners to us. Um and it's something that we take very seriously because it's an opportunity. It's not only good for us but it's also good for the for the local market. I hate these mobile questions, but it's so annoying.
Can't wait to be done with Ernie's calls. It's probably like the last one really. Anyways, should be good. Thank god.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Omar.
Bank of America, please.
>> Bank of America.
>> Hey, thanks for taking my question. Um, so, so Strauss, I was uh I was in the audience at a conference you spoke at recently and you made a couple of comments that um really caught my attention. So one comment was that you'd price your games to reflect the value that they provide for control >> pricing boys.
>> And then a second comment was that the retail price of video games has gone down in real terms over the years.
So, do your comments imply that you you also believe a $70 price tag would be too low for GTA 6 uh relative relative to its its value to consumers because by that logic uh a $70 price tag implies to me that the consumer value of GTA 6 will also go down. Now, if I've misheard your comments, I apologize. However, if my logic is flawed, then what would a $70 price tag imply about the consumer value of GTA 6 relative to its predecessor?
>> Interesting. I >> I think what I was trying to get at was on on real terms, um, video games have become a better and better deal for consumers over a period of time and that that's a good thing. So, I don't think the comments are in in in conflict. In other words, if you can give people something really great and you can offer it on really favorable economic terms, that's a win-win. So, I was really trying to make the point that even though I think the value has grown materially, certainly a video game, you know, released today is vastly more exciting, compelling, intriguing, and longerlasting entertainment than it was when I was at Crystal Dynamics in 1993.
Um, but in real terms, frontline prices have declined. Uh I was I was using that as a backdrop to point out that we think that the most important thing is to deliver the best entertainment on earth and then the second most important thing is to do it on really favorable economic terms but I didn't mean to uh guide in any way you know how you should think about um our upcoming unannounced price on any release. You know that that will be that'll become clear to the market in the fullness of time. Whatever it is though, you know, we want it to represent enormous value to the consumer.
>> Okay. Thanks a lot.
>> Dodging like the Matrix from the line of Clay Griffin with Muppet Napson LLC.
Please go ahead. You >> say Muppet.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Muppet. Um, you got you all had such success with I think you coined the phrase actually tethered freeto play with GTA online. You know, it it helped you sell full game units and uh full game unit sales helped on board people onto GTA online. I know the industry has has changed a lot over over the years, but um and you haven't packaging as it relates to this topic, but just curious if there are dynamics, evolutions in the industry that would that would make um that decision different than than the decision you you've so successfully used with GTA V and GTA Online, the tethered free-to-play strategy.
I I I think of course um not having announced >> uh not getting delayed typical watch no further delays >> for GTA 6 it certainly would be premature to talk about you know an upcoming business model for um something that we haven't talked about um but I think conceptually what we pride ourselves on here is being thoughtful and open-minded um and trying to meet consumers where they are and trying to optimize the entertainment for experience for those consumers. And that's what we've been talking about a lot on this call. You know, when it really comes down to it, what does this company think about? You know, 247, what do I think about? I think about making sure that this is an enterprise that more so than any other entertainment enterprise on Earth focuses on making hit properties that excite and engage consumers. That's what we all think about. Right now I'm in a room with you know our staff right we don't there in this room you know we're we're staff executives right the IR team and the finance team the operations team legal team um but our job we don't make we don't make the titles here we don't market them not in this room not the room that's talking to you today but our mission >> sure >> is to make great entertainment properties and if we get that right as an organization all 14,000 people full-time colleagues and contractors associated with Take 2 and our affiliates focus on making the best entertainment on earth. Then everything else will take care of itself.
Naturally, we have to be the most thoughtful people, the most aggressive people with regard to marketing and distribution. Oh, and by the way, legal activities, finance activities, accounting activities, tax activities as well. That's our job. The mission of the organization is to make great entertainment. And having spent a long time in every entertainment business series, I can tell you one thing. Hits cure all ills. Make great hits over and over and over again, you're going to have great enterprise. And we're so proud of everything this company does.
And we're so proud of the culture in which we do it.
But if we don't get up every day and make hits, none of that matters. So that's our job. That's what we focus on.
>> And frankly, the results that we're talking about today and the we gave you tomorrow.
>> Thanks. All of that is based on having made hits, having delivered hits, and an expectation that we are going to an expectation that we're going to continue doing just that at a higher and higher level.
>> That was funny.
>> Thank you. Excellent.
>> Your next question comes from the line of Drew Crumb.
>> Oh my god, so many questions.
>> Please go ahead.
>> Okay. Thanks. Hey guys, good afternoon.
So looking at your net bookings guidance, how if in any way is potential cannibalization from GTA 6 influencing your view or range of outcomes you see for fiscal 27? Thanks.
>> Um look, the cannibalization doesn't really apply to the entertainment business. In the entertainment business, you compete against everything. You compete against your competitors. You compete against yourselves. You compete against nothing. you know, the choice to do nothing. So, if you're in the grocery business, like everyone needs to eat.
So, you're competing with the grocery store next door. With regard to entertainment, you know, if there's something that you want in the market and then there's something else that you want, you you'll try to buy both. Um, and if there's nothing that you want, you won't buy either. Uh, so there's no onetoone cannibalization. And in fact, history shows that when there's a big hit in the market, you know what it does? energizes consumers around the entertainment market and they consume more. So, I actually think if we're fortunate enough to have the kind of year that we expect, maybe we'll even do a little better than we expect. That's not just going to be good for Take 2 and our labels. It's going to be good for the industry as a whole.
>> Yeah, they are Kane.
>> Thanks, Charles.
>> That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back to Strauss Zelnik for closing remarks.
>> Wow. Look, >> I've spoken an awful lot today and as you pointed out, I've been a bunch of conferences lately too, so maybe no one needs to hear any more than me. Uh, no more from me. I would like to say this though, um, we delivered um, great results that we talked about today and we set a guidance that reflects great results going forward. All of that comes from our around the world. So I want to take a minute to express this management team's enormous gratitude and my personal gratitude to our creative teams, our marketing teams, uh, and our distribution teams and our finance teams and our operations teams all over the world, more than 100 offices around the world if I'm not mistaken. Um, who who work incredibly hard and an incredibly dedicated way to support our collective mission. Um all of this all of this is because of their work. I just get to I get to organize the victory lap. So um thank you um to our team. And then I'd like to take a moment also to thank our shareholders and everyone who supports us and the people who attended this call. Um it's always nice to have a good news call and we're really happy to share with you all.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining.
You may now disconnect.
>> Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Done. Done.
Done. Done. Done. Done. Okay. All right.
Let's just summarize. I mean, majority of people already know, but anyone new that just joined the live stream. Grand Theft Auto 6 is still on track for this year to release on November 19th. No further delay, boys. That is, of course, a very, very, very good thing. I'm thankful for that and I'm sure you guys are so happy about this game. We're finally going to be getting it in less than well less than six months now, which is great. And we also had Ben come out saying here, and this is from um uh Stra Sick himself, something that I was trying to go over in the call, but I didn't really go over it properly. Ben came out saying, "Everyone can come down for a few weeks now. Hopefully June of July is our time for the next major news drop. The next few weeks, I don't think will be summertime yet, but when it's summertime, Rockstar expects to start GTA marketing for GTA 6." So, I would say as Ben said here, June or early July, somewhere around that time frame, we probably should be getting something new in regards to like trailer 3 pre-orders, the box art reveal, all that should be coming about. I would say I wouldn't even be surprised because of the fact because of the way Rockstar have been doing things as of recent with dropping things all in like one hit like they did with trailer 2 and the website.
So, I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same dropping everything in one hit uh alongside uh yeah, trailer 3 and pre-orders. That's what I think is going to happen. similar to what Rockstar did with GTA V and Red Dead 2 as well. So yeah, expect the same to occur. But uh yeah, anyways guys, um thank you so much to everyone that joined today's live stream. Thank you to the donation earlier from I think it was I'll just scroll back up here. Terrible trader goes love the content project wise keep doing what you're doing and boys buy tech this stock it's going to 600 thank you so much to trader much appreciated my friend thank you thank you thank you um but yeah very very good stuff positive news boys game is not going to be further delayed I'm happy and uh yeah much better than the last two times I went live with the whole pre-order best buy league situation and the game informer situation so that's all passed now and we can uh look forward to marketing starting up in the summertime hopefully over the course of these next few weeks, next month I would say, uh, we should be getting something new, boys. So, let's go. Let's go. Thank you, Slyi, for joining. I'm going to bed now.
Bye, PV. Thank you, Kane. Thank you, Akling. Um, thank you, Bam Bam. Thank you, my king is Jesus Christ. Carlos Gamer, thank you. Thank you, Mr. AT. Uh, thank you, Not the Razers, Trent. Thank you, Tobra Trader. Thank you, Akling.
Uh, thank you so much, guys, for joining. I'll see you on the next live stream, boys. Thanks, boys. Positive news. GTA 6 is coming out this year.
Let's go. Catch you later, guys.
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