Grand Theft Auto 5 momentum slows, Take-Two adjusts financial forecast

Take-Two has delivered its latest financial report, and revealed that Grand Theft Auto 5 only shipped around 1m units this quarter.

While this may still seem an impressive figure, it is a marked decrease from previous quarters and the lowest quarter in shipments that Grand Theft Auto 5 has had since its release in 2013. For comparison, in February of this year, the publisher shared it had sold 5m copies between then and the previous November.

Even with this slow down in sales, the publisher stated the game has now sold more than 170m units worldwide.

In more general terms, the company has revised its financial forecast. Its full-year GAAP revenue has been brought down to between $5.4-5.5bn, from $5.73-5.83bn.

Meanwhile, its GAAP net loss forecast has increased to between $631-674m (the company previously forecast a $398-438m net loss).

Despite this revised forecast, Take-Two still feels it had a "great, solid quarter". Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, company head Strauss Zelnick stated the new outlook is "somewhat disappointing" but "not surprising given the economic backdrop and our expectations for the macroeconomy."

Zelnick elaborated that Take-Two remains in "terrific shape" and that the company expects to see "sequential growth" between the fiscal years of 2023 and 2025, thanks to 87 upcoming projects - including many from mobile arm Zynga.

In addition to these figures, during its earnings call, Zelnick further addressed the GTA 6 leak from earlier in the year, which saw a huge amount of material released to the public domain including work-in-progress videos and screenshots.

On this, Zelnick stated the leak was "terribly unfortunate", but reiterated it would have no impact on the game's ongoing development and release. The CEO affirmed there is no evidence that any major assets for the game were stolen during the leak.