Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, said in an analyst call today that fiscal 2026 (the year ending March 31, 2026) is off to a great start with core franchises going well and a diversified portfolio paying off.
The NBA 2K and the Grand Theft Auto series continue to generate ongoing revenue even as fans eagerly await the May 26, 2026 launch of Grand Theft Auto VI — a title that will come out 13 years after GTA V.
The company raised its net bookings outlook to $6.05 billion to $6.15 billion based on a healthy pipeline that in the near term includes Mafia: The Old Country (August 8), Borderlands 4 (September 12) and the next NBA 2K title.
“We have great confidence in our long-term pipeline, and expect to achieve record levels of net bookings in fiscal 2027, that we believe will establish a higher baseline for our business and set us on a path of enhanced profitability,” Zelnick said.
He noted Color Block Jam from Zynga’s hypercasual mobile game division Rollic has become the highest-grossing title in the studio’s history. In our interview, Zelnick brought this game up as evidence that Take-Two is still investing in brand-new IP. Mobile is a much more fertile landscape for that than PC and console games.
Color Block Jam stayed at the top of app store charts during the quarter. In the game, it dropped the first set of rewards where players pile up progressively larger rewards with each consecutive win, and that amplifies engagement and monetization. Zynga made user-acquisition investments that helped it make gains in the quarter.
With Zynga as its main mobile game business, Take-Two has taken a lot of interest in the liberation of the mobile game distribution market, as the courts are moving to remove the lock that Google and Apple have had on mobile app stores that take a 30% commission.
An analyst asked what Zelnick’s thoughts were on the recent court rulings that are enabling more viable alternative app stores on Android and possibly iOS.
“It’s less about user acquisition and more about User monetization. Just to be clear, I think that we’re going to continue to cooperate with all of the app stores. They’re really important partners,” Zelnick said. “And at the same time, the momentum of court rulings is in service of making sure the market is open and fair to all as it ought to be. I’ve been saying for years that I believe that distribution systems in our business would move from closed and the cost of distribution would decline.”
He added, “And we are seeing those two things happen, whether that’s driven by financial necessity, whether it’s driven by opportunity, whether that’s driven by regulation or whether that’s driven by litigation. It’s kind of unimportant to us. The movement is all in the same direction, and that direction is what’s good for the consumer. What’s good for the consumer is open distribution.”
As for the added opportunity for Take-Two, Zelnick said it would help Take-Two itself or to partner with others.
“You can buy currency on our own web stores. Now for most, if not all, of our mobile games, I see that continuing. We have a launcher inside the Rockstar social. So I we don’t intend to integrate forward into retail distribution. We certainly don’t intend to eat retail’s lunch because they are value distribution partners for us,” Zelnick said.
It’s interesting Zelnick drew the lines of where he would compete with stores, but it’s also bold of him to say that he wants fair pricing.
He added, “We want to be wherever the consumer is, whether they want to go to Best Buy. They want to go to Steam. They want to go to Microsoft or Amazon. We want to be there as long as we’re treated fairly. The emphasis is on being treated fairly, and there’s a distribution cost that’s fair, and there’s a distribution cost that is less fair, and the world seems to be moving in the direction of more fair, and the courts are helping.”
As for regions of the world, Zelnick that NBA 2K mobile has been steadily growing and the NBA 2k 25 Arcade Edition continues to top the Apple Arcade chart. And he said NBA 2K All-Star has been strong and profitable since debuting in China in March.
“We continue to focus on our mobile direct-to-consumer business for achieving better conversion driven by new offers, events and enhanced personalization. In the context of recent court rulings, we see ample runway for further growth in this area,” he said.
He noted Grand Theft Auto V has sold more than 215 million copies over the past dozen years or so and Grand Theft Auto Online and GTA V benefited from the record-setting trailer launch for GTA VI. Karl Slatoff, president of Take-Two, said there will be more to say about GTA VI in the coming months.
He said that new player accounts for GTA Online grew over 50% year over year.
He said NBA 2K 25 delivered another quarter of fantastic results. To date, the title has sold in over 11.5 million units, and engagement grew significantly year over year, with daily active users and high career daily active users each up 30% which helped drive 48% growth in recurrent consumer spending.
In addition, the Firaxis studio released the Civilization VII title for Nintendo Switch 2, and that the first offering for the platform featured new mouse controls that offer a more intuitive gameplay experience.
“We’re very pleased to continue supporting Nintendo with additional titles launching throughout the year,” Zelnick said.
Karl Slatoff, president of Take-Two, said in the call that Mafia: The Old Country has 2.5 million wishlists as it heads toward its launch tomorrow. The NBA 2K 26 title from Visual Concepts releases on September 5, and it will be available on Nintendo Switch 2.
Borderlands 4 is coming on September 12, and its demo at the Borderlands Fan Fest generated over 600,000 hours of streams and videos. The title also goes to the Switch 2 in October. Lainie Goldstein, CFO, said in the call, “Our company is set to deliver the most efficient pipeline in our history, which we believe will unlock a new record level of scale as well as enhanced profitability.”
One analyst noted that ad revenue was flat year over year and up sequentially. The firm moved from just hypercasual to a focus that was split between hypercasual and hybridcasual games.
For the company’s recent issuance of new stock, the firm said it raised $1.19 billion in a public offering and that helped it get more than $2 billion in total cash, and that allows it to make inorganic acquisitions.
Regarding the $70 price for Borderlands 4, Zelnick said that the goal is to exceed consumer expectations, not only with the game they get but also the value they perceive that they get for the price.
Regarding the macroeconomic outlook, Zelnick said the return to positive GDP growth in the first quarter after negative GDP shrinkage at the end of last year was welcome. He thinks GDP growth could be 1% or 2% in Q2, with headwinds related to tailwinds and stimulus. That should result in modest growth and a 3% increase in consumer spending. Zelnick believes unemployment will go up from 4.2% to 4.5%. He thinks consumers will be a little more careful with their spending.
“It’s not true that entertainment is counter-cyclical. It’s not even true that entertainment is recession resistant. It is true that people still consume entertainment, even at tough times. They’re just going to be much more selective,” Zelnick said. “They’re going to go to quality. And that’s a trend that’s already been occurring in our business, because our business is maturing, and as entertainment businesses mature, there’s a flight to quality.”
Zelnick said the first aims to be wherever the consumer is. As for platforms like Roblox, Zelnick had said in the past it was a very low priority. He noted today that Roblox is largely aimed at kids and Take-Two’s games are not often rated for everyone.
“We market to appropriate audiences. We work with the ESRB here, and with IARC outside of the U.S. and other local ratings agencies to make sure that our late our titles are properly labeled and properly marketed,” Zelnick said. “So even if a platform like Roblox, as you put it, were viable for some of our releases, not all of them would be appropriate for Roblox. But Roblox is not a platform in the way you say Steam is a platform. Roblox is a certain type of environment. Not all of our games would work on Roblox, whether that’s work technically, work artistically or work commercially.”
Slatoff was asked what Take-Two though about putting NBA 2K 24 into Sony’s PlayStation Plus a year ago. Would it do the same this year? Slatoff said maybe.
“We do put our titles occasionally into some of the subscription services. They’re great partners for us. We wouldn’t do it unless it was a good economic deal, and the platforms wouldn’t do it either,” Slatoff said. “So we do take advantage of that, and it’s been compelling for us, from an economic standpoint, as it relates to NBA. We have done it in the past, and we don’t really talk about whether we’re going to do anything in the future. But when you do put something into a channel like that, it generates engagement. It generates income for us, and it’s something that we consider and we do it if the time is right and the math makes sense.”