Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

And the reason you’ve had failure in the past is that the expression of the IP just wasn’t very good despite people’s best efforts. It’s a really hard business. And we’re not going to bet this company’s future or the value of our intellectual property based on someone else’s execution in another area of the entertainment business. So we’ll continue to be very selective indeed. Even if we did take a broad-based approach — in the absence of investing ourselves, the economic opportunity in the context of the much greater economic opportunity for our core business is limited.

Michael Hickey: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question is from Brian Fitzgerald with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.

Brian Fitzgerald: Thanks. Two quick ones. Strauss — not to get wrapped around the axle with semantics, but you said, hey, we had a phased approach when you were talking about GTA Online. Anything to call out there is a difference or an evolution how you’re marketing and delivering incremental content or now it’s just more of the normal MO? And then second question is on NBA 2K23 added to PlayStation Plus game of the months, that kind — that definitely contributes to strong engagement, but we’re curious whether or not you also see a meaningful uptick in RCS there among those PlayStation plus players, point being, if they are waiting to engage with it once it’s in subscription service. Is there a lower propensity to spend in the game or no, actually, we see an uptick in RCS there as well.

Strauss Zelnick: So on the first question, by phased approach, I was referring to delivering somewhat smaller chunks of really high-quality content as opposed to waiting for a longer period of time to deliver something that’s much larger. And both approaches can work and of late, the phased approach has been working really well. However, there’s not one right approach. It varies with what the team has in mind creatively at any given time.

Karl Slatoff: And then in terms of the things like subscription services or game in a month, where the consumer is necessarily buying the individual game. Obviously, we don’t do these things unless we think there’s a significant economic opportunity for us to do so. So you can — if you see it going in some of those services, you can assume that, that math has been done. And yes, we do see an uptick in recurrent consumer spending generally because we bring a lot of new players. And those players are valuable players. And as long as they’re engaged with the game itself, the engagement is strong and the conversion to RCS is very strong. It’s all about – and again, it varies cohort to cohort and varies game to game. But if we do drive significant engagement from folks who are coming into the game, we are seeing very favorable reserves as it relates to monetization.

Brian Fitzgerald: Awesome. Thanks, Karl. Thanks, Strauss.

Operator: Our next question is from Benjamin Soff with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Benjamin Soff: Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. Just wanted to dig back into the revenue breakdown by studio. It looks like the percentage for Rockstar and other went up. And I’m just wondering if that’s a function of sheer shift from the things you talked about with mobile or if your expectations for those segments that actually improved? And if so, could you talk a little bit more about that? Thanks.

Lainie Goldstein: So the update for Rockstar is based on the momentum in their current business. So there’s some GTA 5 unit sales, some the Red Dead updates and some virtual currency with the GT Online updating. So it’s just overall reforecasting of the business.

Benjamin Soff: Okay. Got it. And then just can you talk broadly about the competitive environment in the industry and whether you think it will be sort of at this level more competitive, less competitive, six months or 12 months from now?