Take-Two Boosts Outlook Ahead of Next ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Release

Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the Grand Theft Auto videogame franchise, beat fiscal first-quarter estimates on Thursday. (Courtesy Take Two Games)

Take-Two Interactive Software reported better-than-expected results for its fiscal first-quarter. Shares were up 4.7% in after-hours trading on the news.

Late Thursday, the maker of Grand Theft Auto posted a loss of seven cents a share for its fiscal first quarter, beating Wall Street estimates for a 69 cent per share loss. Bookings—the net amount of products and services sold digitally or physically during the period—were $1.42 billion, up 17% from the prior year and ahead of analyst estimates for $1.32 billion.

“The company did great this quarter, and it was really a story of crushing it across the board,” CEO Strauss Zelnick told Barron’s on Thursday.

Take-Two customers have a lineup of videogames releases to look forward to in the coming months, including NBA 2K26 on Sept. 5, Borderlands 4 on Sept. 12, and the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI on May 26.

The videogame maker said it now expects bookings for the fiscal year ending on March 31 to be $6.05 billion to $6.15 billion, up from a previous guidance range of $5.9 billion to $6 billion.

Take-Two expects fiscal second-quarter bookings to be between $1.7 billion and $1.75 billion, while analysts expected second-quarter bookings of $1.76 billion.

Shares of Take-Two have risen 22% this year.

The better-than-expected results comes during a time of uncertainty regarding the broader economic environment. As tariff policies continue to be introduced, there’s concerns that consumers will pull back on nonessential purchases. That could include videogames, though it has yet to show up in the data.

“I wish I could say that interactive entertainment was a counter cyclical business, or even a recession resistant business. It’s not,” Zelnick said. “When consumers feel pressure they reduce their spending. However, they don’t give up entertainment. What happens in tougher times is that there’s an even greater movement to quality.”

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com