GTA 5 has sold-in 29 million copies; more Take-Two financial results here

By Phil Owen

Rockstar and Take-Two have announced that Grand Theft Auto V has been unprecedentedly successful, “selling-in” 29 million copies since it launched just six weeks ago. (That’s to stores, not people.) That’s more than GTA IV moved on consoles in five years.

“During the fiscal second quarter, we delivered record Non-GAAP results driven by the unprecedented success of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V,” said CEO Strauss Zelnick. “The title received stellar reviews, shattered entertainment industry records, and has already sold-in nearly 29 million units to date. The extraordinary success of Grand Theft Auto V illustrates the positive momentum in our business and consumers’ enduring appetite for the highest-quality interactive entertainment.”

For the quarter ending September 30, GTA V drove revenue of $1.27 billion for Take-Two, up from $288 million during the same quarter last year.

Because of GTA’s success, which exceeded expectations, Take-Two is expecting the fiscal year’s revenue to be higher than $2.2 billion.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said on the financial results call that he credits the ridiculous success of GTA V to its release so late in the console cycle, saying that the large install bases for the Xbox 360 and PS3 made it possible.

Zelnick wouldn’t say what the difference is between the sell-in and sell-through (to the consumers) numbers for GTA V, but he did say they expect to sell-in many more copies of the game through the current quarter.

Borderlands 2 has shipped about 7.5 million copies in the year since it launched, and the GOTY edition released this quarter helped boost that number. Borderlands 2’s next DLC is called Wattle Gobbler, and is due in November.

BioShock Infinite and Civilization V: Brave New World were the other main items that drove revenue last quarter.

Next Gen

More from Zelnick: “We currently have more than ten unique titles planned for next-generation consoles, including multiple releases slated for fiscal 2015.”

Take-Two has not even discussed any plans for put GTAV or GTA Online onto the next-gen consoles. Or at least that’s what they’re saying on this call.

Zelnick says they don’t see a meaningful difference in the costs of developing titles for next-gen compared with those of current-gen titles.