Take-Two Sticks to Full-Year Targets as NBA 2K27 Misses the Mark
Published on 11/10/2026 at 02:41 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Take-Two Interactive is asking investors to look past a soft September quarter and toward a December frame that must do a lot of heavy lifting. The company reaffirmed its full-year bookings guidance on the same day it disclosed an 18% slide in net bookings to $1.60 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 — a period that ended September 30, 2026.
Recurring consumer spending, which accounted for 81% of that bookings figure, fell 9% year over year. The decline puts a sharper point on the challenge facing Take-Two: beyond the hype surrounding its coming releases, it has to steady the revenue streams it already owns.
NBA 2K27 Starts Strong but Falls Short of Plan
The basketball franchise tells the story neatly. NBA 2K27 delivered the second-highest launch in the series as measured by net bookings, yet still landed below internal forecasts. A historically successful opening, in other words, was not enough to clear the bar management had set. More than 4 million copies have moved since the September 4 release, and Take-Two still expects high-single-digit percentage growth for NBA 2K across the full fiscal year.
There was a brighter line in the quarter. The net loss narrowed to $54.0 million from $133.9 million a year earlier, a smaller deficit despite the weaker top line — an improvement Take-Two will need to sustain if the business turns up.
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A December Quarter That Has to Deliver
Guidance for the December period calls for net bookings of $3.35 billion to $3.50 billion. The LSEG analyst consensus cited by Reuters sits at $3.51 billion, just above the top of that range. Hitting the full-year plan therefore requires the coming months to more than offset the recently reported softness.
For fiscal 2027, Take-Two is holding to net bookings of $8.0 billion to $8.2 billion. Chief financial officer Lainie Goldstein expects recurring consumer spending to land at the prior year's level, a forecast that leans on strong growth from the GTA franchise — the Ultimate Edition in particular. In the third quarter, recurring spending is projected to climb 12%.
Underpinning that assumption is what the company describes as extraordinary demand for Grand Theft Auto VI. CEO Strauss Zelnick has called the level of preorders unprecedented, though Take-Two has not disclosed specific preorder figures. The game remains scheduled to launch November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Costs Climb as Cash Conversion Moves Into Focus
Marketing and development spending are both set to rise year over year, according to the finance chief, raising the financial stakes attached to the sales outlook. That makes the conversion of the business into cash as important to watch as unit sales. By the close of the fiscal year on March 31, 2027, Take-Two expects operating cash flow above $1 billion and a net cash position.
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On the analyst side, price targets have been trimmed without any change in conviction. Roth MKM cut its target to $272 from $300 on Friday while analyst Eric Handler kept a Buy rating, according to media reports. BTIG had already lowered its target to $262 from $313 on Wednesday, with analyst Clark Lampen also sticking with a Buy. A third firm initiated coverage on Friday with an outperform expectation and a $300 target, reports said. Shares slipped 1.8% on the day; no direct link between that move and the analyst actions has been confirmed.
Rockstar Games, meanwhile, said on November 3 that digital preloading for Grand Theft Auto VI will begin November 10, nine days before launch, and on Thursday published a gallery of new screenshots. Take-Two had flagged October 13 that it would report quarterly results after the market close — numbers that arrived with the GTA VI countdown already running.
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