Take-Two's GTA VI Preorders Dwarf Expectations, but NBA 2K27 Is Dragging on the Numbers
Published on 11/10/2026 at 15:22 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Take-Two Interactive is heading into the November 19 console launch of GTA VI with preorders that chief executive Strauss Zelnick says are running far beyond the company's original expectations — a disclosure that has done little to settle a split on Wall Street over how much of that demand is already baked into guidance.
On the same day, UBS trimmed its price target on the publisher to $295 from $300 while keeping a Buy rating, and JPMorgan reaffirmed Overweight with a $310 target. The two houses are looking at the same quarter through different lenses: one focused on a soft NBA 2K27 performance, the other on the unprecedented scale of GTA VI preorders. Take-Two has not disclosed specific unit figures for either title.
A Quarter That Missed on Both Lines
Net bookings for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 came in at $1.60 billion, down 18% from the year-earlier period and short of both the company's own forecast and the $1.65 billion analysts had expected, according to Bloomberg. NBA 2K27 landed below internal projections — partly, Bloomberg reported, because of GTA VI itself. GamesBeat noted that more than 4 million copies sold still weren't enough to clear Take-Two's bar, even though the title delivered the second-highest bookings performance in the franchise's history.
Recurring consumer spending offered less support than hoped, slipping 9% in bookings while still accounting for 81% of total net bookings. That weighting makes a recovery in recurrent spending central to the full-year picture.
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UBS Trims, JPMorgan Leans In
UBS's revision runs through the forecast period. For fiscal 2027, the bank now models bookings of $8.7 billion, down from $8.9 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $7.21 versus $7.48 previously. Fiscal 2028 bookings were cut to $9.1 billion from $9.2 billion, with adjusted EPS trimmed to $10.86 from $11.06. The analysts drew a distinction between the weaker top line and an adjusted per-share result that beat their expectations.
JPMorgan moved the other way, lifting its fiscal 2027 bookings estimate by 1% to $8.3 billion and projecting an acceleration in bookings and user activity for NBA 2K27 in the second half of the fiscal year. The firm estimates Take-Two's own guidance embeds roughly 34 million GTA VI sales — against the 33 million copies GTA V moved in its first fiscal year.
The December Quarter Is the Real Test
Take-Two's confirmed full-year outlook calls for net bookings of $8.0 billion to $8.2 billion, a range both banks sit above with their own estimates. For the December quarter, the company projects $3.35 billion to $3.50 billion — a sharp sequential jump, but below the $3.51 billion LSEG analyst consensus cited by Reuters.
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CFO Lainie Goldstein expects recurring consumer spending in fiscal 2027 to match fiscal 2026 levels at 65% of net bookings, underpinned by strong growth in the GTA franchise — particularly through the GTA VI Ultimate Edition — and high-single-digit percentage gains for NBA 2K.
Whether the preorder wave converts into actual sales, and whether recurrent spending rebounds as projected, will decide how much weight the bullish calls carry. Until NBA 2K27 closes the gap with internal targets, the GTA franchise will have to carry a correspondingly larger share of the load.
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