Earlier today, publisher Take-Two Interactive announced that the company has exceed expectations for their fiscal third quarter that ended on December 31, 2018. In the publisher’s third quarter financial report, the company’s CEO and chairman, Strauss Zelnick, stated that “Our outperformance was driven primarily by the record-breaking launch of Red Dead Redemption II along with strong results from NBA 2k19.”
Rockstar’s critically acclaimed Western epic, Red Dead Redemption II, was the leader of revenue generation and outpaced Take-Two Interactive expectations by selling 23 million copies at retail worldwide. The game achieved the biggest opening weekend in entertainment history, and would go on to sell 17 million copies within its first two weeks on sale. In the United States, the game would become the best selling game of 2018.
The latest entry in Take-Two’s highly successful basketball series, NBA 2k19, also exceeded the publisher’s expectations. The game was the best selling sports title of the year and, in the United States, went on to become the third best selling game of the year.
Overall, net revenue for the publisher grew to an astounding $1.249 billion up from $480.8 million in the third quarter of the previous year. Recurrent consumer spending which includes spending on virtual currency, add-on content, and in-game purchases increased a massive 31%, and made up 24% of the publisher’s total net revenue for the quarter. Digital net revenue for the publisher grew over $300 million to $594.7 million from the $258.4 million Take-Two made in the third quarter of 2017.
Thanks to the success the publisher found in the third quarter, Zelnick stated that the company is “raising our outlook for fiscal 2019, which is poised to be a record year for Net Bookings and Adjusted Operating Cash Flow.” To accomplish this the publisher plans to “embrace new technologies” and continue to expand the reach of the company. The publisher also recently brought in Sledgehammer Games’ co-founder Michael Condrey to head new 2K studio.