Digital sales were boosted.
Publisher Take-Two shared their fiscal third quarter report – which ended on Dec. 31 – Wednesday morning, growing substantially in net revenue due to the success of Red Dead Redemption 2.
Red Dead Redemption 2 largely exceeded expectations, selling 23 million copies on the retail front worldwide, and increasing digital sales revenues.
Net revenue for the company grew to $1.249 billion, compared to $480.8 million in the same quarter of 2017.
Virtual currency, add-on content, and in-game purchases increased and made up 24 percent of the total net revenue, thanks in part to Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K19 and NBA 2K 18, Sid Meier’s Civilization 6, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Online, WWE 2K19 and WWE SuperCard, and Dragon City and Monster Legends.
Digital sales heavily grew, making up 48% of total net revenue for the quarter, including games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K19, and Sid Meier’s Civilization 6.
NBA 2K19 was noted as the third best selling game of 2018, with its lifetime sales climbing higher than NBA 2K18. Civilization 6 on Nintendo Switch also had more sales than were expected.
Chairman and CEO of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick, commented on the growth.
“Our outperformance was driven primarily by the record-breaking launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 along with strong results from NBA 2K19. In addition, consumers engaged significantly with our offerings, and recurrent consumer spending grew 31% to a new record.”
Red Dead Redemption 2 sold through $725 million in copies in just the first three days of its launch, marking an achievement early on as having the biggest opening weekend in entertainment history.
Take-Two plans on expanding their growth further for 2019, by utilizing new technologies for players’ experiences and widening their reach globally.
The increase across the board for Take-Two is contrasting to EA’s recent report for their third quarter, in which they said, “Q3 was a difficult quarter for Electronic Arts and we did not perform to our expectations.” EA is now focusing on Apex Legends and Anthem to boost their growth.
To see more about the games that contributed to Take-Two’s most recent growth, check out IGN’s reviews of Red Dead Redemption 2, which received a perfect 10; NBA 2K19; Civilization 6 which was released last year on the Switch; and WWE 2K19.
Jessie Wade is a news writer at IGN and tends to cover the fiscal report beat. Chat with her on Twitter @jessieannwade.
