GTA VI publisher suggests 2024 to be a very lucrative year (wink, wink)

Grand Theft Auto VIthe next entry in the popular open-world franchise from Rockstar Games, may be out as soon as next year based on some big numbers found in the new earnings report.

It’s no news that Rockstar Games is working on the next entry in GTA series. The company confirmed this last year. Then, in September 2022, Notorious GTA VI Leak occurredAnd Reveal a lot of details About the game that is still under development. But while we know the game is real, is in development, and will likely be set in Florida, we don’t yet have a release date for the much-hyped part of the game. Grand Theft Auto V. However, what we may finally have is an edit window thanks Take-Two’s new earnings report was released on May 17.

in Accompanying press release From Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive, the publisher has projected a massive increase in sales in the upcoming fiscal year 2025 which begins in April 2024. Specifically, the publisher expects more than $8 billion in net bookings. It also expects this “momentum” to continue into its fiscal 2026. Here’s the main part of the press release:

We believe we will enter our next phase of growth in fiscal 2025, as we plan to deliver several groundbreaking titles that we expect will set new standards for quality and success and enable us to deliver over $8 billion in net bookings and over $1 billion in unrestricted adjusted operating cash flow. We expect to maintain this momentum with further growth in operating performance in fiscal 2026.

as pointed out IGNThat’s a pretty bold prediction for the company’s next two fiscal years considering that Take-Two’s net bookings for the most recent fiscal year were just over $5 billion, one of the highest in the company’s history. This hasn’t been driven not by a handful of great games that are doing well, but instead by Take-Two’s purchase of mobile game giant Zynga, Purchased in 2022 for more than $12 billion. Before she owned Zynga, her net worth hovered around the $3 billion range.

Take-Two expects something huge in 2024

So Take-Two must be expecting something very big To be able to break the previous record, which itself only happened thanks to a historically significant acquisition. There aren’t many video game franchises that can bring in that kind of cash beyond something like Grand Theft Outo Or more specifically, the highly anticipated sequel to GTA V game, one of the best-selling games of all time. Yes, that could be big enough to move the needle up to $8 billion or so.

Of course, to be clear: Take-Two didn’t mention in that press release, the related earnings report, or its call with investors after the report was released that “Yeah, GTA VI It will be released in 2024! “

When the company’s CFO Lainie Goldstein was asked if the 2025 numbers were based on sales of upcoming games or would be earned through legacy titles or microtransactions, she demurred, saying the company wasn’t “talking about the specifics of that at this time.”

At another point in the call, CEO Strauss Zelnick dodged giving a definitive answer as to why they expected such a huge next couple of years even with Many games are delayed. In response, the CEO said the company now has “a great deal of confidence that this pipeline will be delivered in the next three years.” Whatever it means!

Kotaku I reached out to Take-Two about its earnings report.

If it looks like Take-Two Interactive is trying to convince people that it’s going to have a huge opportunity next year while also trying not to say why, that’s because… yeah, that’s exactly what we think is going on here. Lots of winking, nudging, and smiling, but never saying what seems likely: Grand Theft Auto VI It will likely be released sometime next year.