Take-Two today reported its earnings for the third quarter of its 2013 fiscal year, which grew 176% from last year to $415.8M following the success of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the Rockstar Games Collection: Edition 1. In addition, the “record-breaking release” of NBA 2K13, which shipped nearly 4.5 million units worldwide, reached its "highest ever digitally delivered revenues."
Borderlands 2, meanwhile, shipped an additional million units, bringing its lifetime sold-to-retailers number to almost 6M copies, and is the highest-selling game in 2K's history." Take-Two also celebrated the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for iOS, the continued success of Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption, and NBA 2K Online's revenue generation in China.
Looking ahead, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick focused on the anticipated commercial and critical success of BioShock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto V, MLB 2K13, as well as the ongoing success of Borderlands 2 via its add-on retail bundle.
Further in these projections, 2K Marin's troubled tactical shooter XCOM remains in active development and on track for release within Take-Two's 2014 fiscal year, which places its release date anywhere from April 2013 to March 2014. Recent information suggests XCOM has transformed from its original incarnation as a first-person shooter and retail release to a downloadable third-person action title. IGN inquired with 2K Marin about the future of XCOM, but received no details beyond an acknowledgment of its active development.
Whether that shooter remains on current or future platforms remains to be seen, but Zelnick anticipates "an extensive pipeline of unannounced titles in development."
Zelnick also clarified the justification for delaying Grand Theft Auto V, stating, "The reason the title is coming out in September is that it’s the time required to make sure it’s everything everyone expects and then some.” When asked about the possibility of releasing Rockstar's next game on both current consoles and next generation hardware, Zelnick said, "There is not one gamer who’s going to sit it out on GTA V hoping there’s something down the road that’s better.” Zelnick also cited the small initial install base that comes with new consoles as a reason for remaining on existing hardware.
Though he isn't open about next-gen concerning GTAV, Zelnick thinks Take-Two is "extremely well-positioned" when it comes to taking on a new generation of hardware. “We really can’t talk about next-gen because we’re not the ones to talk about it first," he continued, before stating that Take-Two does not "have any reason to believe our development budgets will change" in the wake of annualized franchises on next-gen platforms.
Take-Two seems poised to take on new hardware when the time is right, it's just a matter of Sony or Microsoft opening up about what's next. Until then, "Everyone is excited about the possibilities," said Zelnick.
Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor at IGN. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.
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