Strauss Zelnick: Take-Two Is a "Hit Factory" That Chooses "Delays Over Flops"

Take-Two Interactive has recently published its financial results for the third quarter of FY 2023 which show that the company has lowered its revenue expectations for this financial year by $320 million.

According to the company's investor presentation, the initial outlook for the current fiscal year's revenue was between $5.73 and $5.83 billion, however, now the publisher expects its revenue to be between $5.41 and $5.51 billion. Take-Two explained that about 70% of the downward revision reflects the company's lowered expectations for its mobile business as well as shifts in the release schedule.

During the earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that lowered guidance for FY2023 for the most part is related to the company's mobile business rather than the pipeline, although he admitted that "there have been some modest pipeline shifts" for some games that are now in development. He, however, noted that "the good news is those titles are, of course, coming."

Zelnick also boasted that Take-Two is a "hit factory" which has never had a "disappointing release" and added that one of the reasons for that is that Take-Two prefers quality rather than avoiding delays.

"We would much rather – if you have to choose – I'd much rather have the situation we're in, which is we've had some delays and we have had to revise down guidance," he said. "I'll choose that any day over taking some flops. That's really the key in this business."

The shifts in the company's pipeline Zelnick was talking about include the delay of Marvel's Midnight Suns and Kerbal Space Program 2's shift to early access. In total, according to Zelnick, the company has now 87 titles across mobile, PC, and console in development at various Take-Two studios, with 38 games being mobile titles coming from the recently-acquired Zynga.

You can find Take-Two's financial results here. Also, don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.