Grand Theft Auto Online cushions the blow of Red Dead’s delay

Take-Two Interactive Software delayed Red Dead Redemption 2 this week until 2018. But that didn’t derail the company’s outlook for the current fiscal year. That’s because the video game publisher isn’t as dependent on its huge launches as it once was. Now it can count on revenues from its back catalog, online game transactions, live updates and tournaments, and downloadable content releases. All of those things help smooth the financial results.

Although Take-Two’s stock price dipped after the Red Dead Redemption 2 announcement yesterday, it’s now back up more than 5 percent today after the company reported earnings exceeded expectations. Recurrent consumer spending — which includes all sales from DLCs, microtransactions, and in-game currency after someone first buys a game — was also reported to have grown 64 percent year-over-year to a record high, according to Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, in an analyst call today.