NBA 2K19 and GTA Online drive Take-Two results

Take-Two Q2 revenue has increased 11% to $492.7 million on the back of record-breaking sales for NBA 2K19.

Income rose from a $2.7 million loss last year to $25.4 million profit. It is a significant increase, although below the company's initial forecasts.

NBA2K19 enjoyed the biggest launch in the series to date. It is already the best-selling sports game of 2018 and posted the highest launch revenue sales for any sports game since tracking began in 1995 (NPD figures).

The results are for the three months ending September 30th, so doesn't include the huge launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, which generated $725 million in just three days.

NBA 2K19 sales grew 10 per cent over last year's release, driven by growth in recurrent consumer spending. Additionally, downloads of the game also increased significantly. NBA 2K18 contributed to the company's profit increase as well, with a 70% increase in recurring revenue.

Digital overall was a big driver. Digitally-delivered revenue grew 18% to $358.4 million and accounted for 73% of the total revenue. Meanwhile, bookings from recurrent consumer spending (which is how Take-Two describes DLC and microtransactions) grew 28% and accounted for 53% of the total bookings.

The company says that the split between digital download sales and physical sales are moving faster than previously anticipated. "It's moving faster than our original projections for the year, meaningfully so," CEO Strauss Zelnick told Gamesindustry.biz.

VP of planning and forecasting Hannah Stage added: “NBA was higher digitally and we even announced with our Red Dead opening weekend release how strong digital was for Sony. We now project that 37 per cent of current gen console game sales will be digitally delivered for FY19, up from 34% last year. We had previously expected to be 32% for the year."

Zelnick continues: "Of course physical retail is still a big partner for us, if that needs to be said."

NBA 2K19 wasn't the only game responsible for the results. Grand Theft Auto V continues to sell well, with sell-in figures now at over 100 million. The Grand Theft Auto Online mode is still exceeding the company's expectations even ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2's launch.

"We said that we didn't expect to see cannibalization [between GTA Online and Red Dead 2]," says Zelnick. "Every title competes with every other title - it doesn't matter what label puts it out. And every title also competes with itself and compete with nothing at all. We did not see cannibalization effects and we don't expect to."

Furthermore, NBA 2K Online in China grew 85% following the launch of NBA 2K Online 2 in August. The game and its predecessor now has 40 million registered users.

The company expects to generate between $36 and $48 million in income over the next financial quarter with revenue of between $1.10 and $1.15 billion. The company has also raised its outlook for the full financial year. It expects to deliver between $2.55 billion to $2.65 billion in revenue, with income of between $202 to $232 million. Previously it had expected between $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion, with income of between $169 and $199 million. The increase is due to better-than-expected sales of Red Dead Redemption 2.