Take-Two finishes the fiscal year $42.5m in profit

Publisher Take-Two has recorded a bumper fiscal year for 2010, posting a $42.5 million profit for its last four quarters.

This is a huge from the $140 million net loss for the previous fiscal year. Q4 (ending October 31) saw profits of $53.8 million, against a loss of $25.5 million for the same quarter last year.

Year on year revenues grew 65 per cent to $1.15 billion, with Q4 up 32 per cent to $373.7 million.

While Red Read Redemption's 8 million sales were the major element in Rockstar titles providing 46 per cent of the fiscal year's revenues, the publisher also hailed its Sports label as being profitable in its own right.

October's NBA 2K11 has sold 3 million units since its October release, the publisher revealed, with decent support from MLB 2K11.

Take-Two also named Mafia II, Civilization V, GTA 4: Complete and New Carnival Games as "the strongest contributors" to Q4's profit.

Also contributing to the publisher's strong year were digital revenues, which totalled $94 million for fiscal 2010. Again, Rockstar titles (including GTA 4) were the major provider here, though Borderlands DLC also contributed.

Despite the tall shadow of Red Dead Redemption, outgoing Take-Two CEO Ben Feder was adamant that the publisher was not Rockstar-dependent. "We have achieved our goal of profitability in a year without a new release of Grand Theft Auto," he claimed.

The "milestone year" had left Take-Two, he later told investors, "in a stronger position than at any time in our history."

Stated Take-Two chairman (and CEO once Feder leaves next year) Strauss Zelnick, "As we finish 2010, our Company is better positioned for success than ever, creatively, operationally and financially. We plan to build on the talents of our world-class creative team to deliver an increasingly diverse portfolio of high-quality titles.

"We will also pursue opportunities to enter newer areas of the interactive entertainment business, such as digitally delivered content and the expanding Asian and Latin American markets."

Take-Two is to realign its fiscal calendar to run from April to March as of next year. Interim results for the three months ending December 31 are to follow ahead of this, with the firm predicting $290 to $315 in revenue over that period. A new Q4 will then follow.

For the realigned fiscal 12 months, ending March 31 2011, it forecasts revenue of $1.0 to $1.1 billion.