TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE, INC (NASDAQ:TTWO) stock rose 1.87% (As on May 17, 11:12:51 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company tempered expectations for fiscal 2025 bookings, sparking concerns that the release of the highly anticipated “Grand Theft Auto VI” could get delayed. Take-Two reported fourth-quarter bookings of $1.35 billion, down 3% from a year ago, but higher than average analysts’ estimate of $1.30 billion, helped by resilient in-game spending on its live service titles like “Grand Theft Auto V” and “WWE 2K24”. The company, had let go of about 5% of its workforce last month and scrapped several projects in development as part of a cost-reduction plan, aligning with similar moves across the gaming industry. The video-game industry is witnessing a sharp slowdown in bookings this year after steadily recovering from a post-pandemic slump last year, as reduced consumer spending prompts firms to lay off thousands of employees and scale back operations.

TTWO in the fourth quarter of FY 24 has reported the GAAP net loss was $2.90 billion, or $17.02 per share, as compared to $610.3 million, or $3.62 per share, for the comparable period last year. Despite these gains, the company faced a substantial GAAP net loss of $2.90 billion for the quarter, primarily due to hefty impairment charges totaling approximately $2.48 billion related to goodwill and acquired intangible assets. The company had reported the adjusted revenue decline of 3 percent to $1.40 billion in the fourth quarter of FY 24, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $1.35 billion. Recurrent consumer spending decreased 2% and accounted for 79% of total GAAP net revenue. The largest contributors to GAAP net revenue were NBA 2K24 and NBA 2K23, Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V, Toon Blast, Empires & Puzzles, our hyper-casual mobile portfolio, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, WWE 2K24, Match Factory!, and Words With Friends.

The video game publisher now expects bookings between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion for 2025, down from its prior forecast of just over $7 billion. It forecast first-quarter net bookings of $1.20 billion to $1.25 billion, compared with estimates of $1.24 billion. Take-Two has a pipeline of about 40 titles through fiscal 2027 while it has 16 titles in its fiscal 2025. The company have seven immersive core titles, including TopSpin, NBA, and, WWE 2K25, and the next iteration in one of 2K’s biggest and most beloved franchises, with the first details coming in just a few short weeks at Summer Games Fest Kickoff Live.