Q4 2023 Take Two Interactive Software Inc Earnings Call
Speaker 1: Is thir ter R.
Speaker 2: Greetings and welcome to the Take 2 Q4 Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call.
Speaker 2: At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow up a formal presentation.
Speaker 2: If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad.
Speaker 2: As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.
Speaker 2: It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Nicole Schevins, Senior Vice President of IR and Corporate Communications.
Speaker 2: Thank you Ms. Shevins, you may begin.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 as in March 31, 2023. Today's call will be led by Strauss Velnick, Take-Two's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Carl Sladev, our President, and Lainey Goldstein, our Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker 2: We will be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session following our prepared remarks.
Speaker 2: Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of our management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to us. We have no obligations to update these forward-looking statements.
Speaker 2: Actual operating results may vary significantly from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of factors. These important factors are described in our filings with the SEC, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q , including the risks summarized in the section entitled Risk Factors. I'd also like to note that, unless otherwise stated, all numbers we will be discussing today will probably increase the accuracy and the cable that measures all of these factors.
Speaker 2: gap measure to the most comparable gap measure. In addition, we have posted to our website a slide deck that visually presents our results and financial outlook. Our press release and filings with the SEC may be obtained from our website at TakeTwoGames.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Strauss.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that we concluded fiscal 2023 by delivering strong fourth quarter results, including net bookings of $1.4 billion, which were above the high end of our expectations. On behalf of our management team, I'd like to thank all of our colleagues around the world for
Speaker 3: for helping us achieve these results and supporting our vision to become a more scaled, diverse, industry leading organization, especially as we navigate an oftentimes volatile and uncertain economic landscape.
Speaker 3: With fiscal 2024 underway, our initial expectation is to deliver full year net bookings in the range of $5.45 to $5.55 billion.
Speaker 3: We're assuming a continuation of the current challenging consumer backdrop within our forecasts.
Speaker 3: Additionally, the development timelines of some of our titles have lengthened, especially as we strive to redefine the creative standards of excellence of our industry, which affect our release late for the year.
Speaker 3: Looking ahead, fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our company. For the last several years, we've been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success.
Speaker 3: In fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry.
Speaker 3: and enable us to achieve over $8 billion in net bookings and over $1 billion in adjusted, unrestricted operating cash flow.
Speaker 3: We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in fiscal 2026.
Speaker 3: and beyond. I'd now like to discuss several key highlights from Fiscal 2023, which was a milestone year in the 30-year history of our organization.
Speaker 3: We delivered netbookings of $5.3 billion, which reflects both the transformative evolution of our company through our combination with Zynga, and our ability to create, market, and distribute the highest quality entertainment experiences.
Speaker 3: We made excellent progress integrating Zynga. The combination has been highly accretive to our business as we've embarked on new revenue-driven opportunities, exceeded our anticipated cost synergies for year one, and enhanced further our mobile platform through select acquisitions.
Speaker 3: As we approach the one-year anniversary of our accommodation, we're immensely proud of the trajectory of our integration and the strength of our shared culture and values.
Speaker 3: Our headcount now stands at nearly 12,000 talented individuals, including approximately 9,000 developers in our studios throughout the world, which positions us exceedingly well to reach the full potential of our headline.
Speaker 3: and we've maintained our focus on our core tenet of efficiency. We've taken a rigorous approach to our cost reduction program announced in February , which we believe will surpass meaningfully the $50 million in annual savings that we originally anticipated.
Speaker 3: Our fourth quarter outperformance was led by strong results from Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Zinga's mobile portfolio. Broadly speaking, the macroeconomic environment remained relatively consistent with what we experienced throughout the third quarter holiday season. While consumers continued to exercise restraint with their purchasing behaviors,
Speaker 3: They prioritized blockbuster franchises and titles that offered great value. As a result, our vast catalogue of proven, high-quality titles achieved strong results.
Speaker 3: As part of our ongoing portfolio management measures, we made the decision to cancel several unannounced titles in development, which we believe will enable us to tighten our focus and reallocate resources to projects for which our creative teams have higher levels of conviction and expectations of success.
Speaker 3: As part of our ongoing portfolio management measures, we made the decision to cancel several unannounced titles in development, which we believe will enable us to tighten our focus and reallocate resources to projects for which our creative teams have higher levels of conviction and expectations of success, excluding the associated write-offs.
Speaker 3: Our fourth quarter and full year management earnings results were above the high end of our guidance.
Speaker 3: We manage our pipeline actively, sometimes making difficult decisions, to ensure that we're meeting our creative standards and achieving financial returns that are consistent with the goals of our company.
Speaker 3: We believe that an evolving, robust pipeline is an essential part of our long-term strategy to expand, enhance, and diversify our portfolio, to grow our player base, and to launch a multitude of new hit franchises across an array of platforms and business models.
Speaker 3: Turning to the performance of our titles for the period, Grand Theft Auto V exceeded our expectations and to date the title has sold in more than 180 million units worldwide.
Speaker 3: As hardware supply constraints receded, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online adoption on the latest generation of platforms continue to grow.
Speaker 3: For the first three weeks of Grand Theft Auto Online's holiday update, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles grew to 14% of its audience penetration and 25% of its revenue penetration, up from 11% and 20% respectively, versus last summer's content update for the comparable period.
Speaker 3: Theft Auto Online's holiday update, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles grew to 14% of its audience penetration and 25% of its revenue penetration, up from 11% and 20% respectively, versus last summer's content update for the comparable period.
Speaker 3: During the period, Rockstar Games continued to support the passionate global Grand Theft Auto online community with an array of new content offerings, including the last dose, an epic finale of the Los Santos Drug Wars update, as well as the roving gun van, taxi work missions, a new 50-car garage, new vehicles, clothes, weapons, modes, and much more.
Speaker 3: Los Santos Drug Wars introduced a phased approach to delivering high-value content, creating a much longer tail of sustained engagement in net bookings than we've seen with previous content updates.
Speaker 3: Additionally, GTA Plus, Rockstar's premium membership program, continues to perform well, driven by a positive response to monthly events since the launch of Los Santos Drug Wars.
Speaker 3: Red Dead Redemption 2 outperformed our plans and to date the title has sold in more than 53 million units worldwide.
Speaker 3: We're also pleased with the continued engagement of players we've read down online, as demonstrated by its 10% year-on-year increase in new online players on all platforms.
Speaker 3: NBA 2K23 continues to grow its audience with the title selling in over 11 million units to date, a record for the series at this stage, and achieving its highest ever virtual currency sales.
Speaker 3: In addition, engagement with MBA2K23 remained incredibly strong with approximately 2.3 million daily active users, including growth in the city, my career, and my team users.
Speaker 3: NBA 2K23 Arcade Edition continues to bring the best basketball experience to mobile devices and has maintained its number one position on Apple Arcade.
Speaker 3: Building upon visual concepts resounding success and reinvigorating our WWE franchise last year, WWE 2K23 enjoyed the highest Metacritic review score average in the history of the series.
Speaker 3: Engagement with the game has been outstanding, players logging nearly 8 million hours of gameplay and facing off in more than 100 million matches.
Speaker 3: 2K is supporting the title with a series of add-on content that can be purchased individually or as part of a season pass.
Speaker 3: We value deeply our relationship with the WWE and look forward to continuing and expanding upon our successful partnership in the years to come.
Speaker 3: Private Division and Intercept Games launched Kerbal Space Program 2 in early access for PC on Steam, Epic Games Store, and other storefronts.
Speaker 3: Our teams are encouraged by the incoming player feedback, and we've already implemented several updates, with more on the way as development continues.
Speaker 3: Last week, Private Division announced a partnership with Gamefree to publish their upcoming new action adventure IP, which is one of Private Division's most ambitious projects to date. In addition, Private Division and the Roll7 Studio were recently honored with two prestigious industry awards, the BAFTA for Best British Game for Rollerdrome, and the World's Best
Speaker 3: and best sports game of dice for OlliOlli World.
Speaker 3: Zynga's mobile business had a strong finish to the year. In-app purchases were above our expectations. Momentum has continued and we were pleased to experience strong demand over the Easter holiday.
Speaker 3: Efforts to increase our advertising business are tracking well, with ad revenue growing quarter over quarter and accounting for approximately 27% of Zingoo's net bookings. Our teams are successfully increasing advertising supply in our games, investing in optimization, and implementing new ad products which are helping us monetize a much broader cohort of users.
Speaker 3: A few highlights of Zynga's offerings during the period include Empires and Puzzles, Zynga's highest grossing title, drove engagement through its new in-game event, Season of Love. Zynga's social casino portfolio had its best quarter in nearly two years, driven by record performance from Game of Thrones slots casino and strong overall results from Zynga Poker. Hit it rich.
Speaker 3: and Wizard of Oz slots.
Speaker 3: Top 11 had a robust quarter and launched its Proving Ground England minigame update in February , which challenged players to recreate the greatest moments in English football history.
Speaker 3: The new Race Pass from CSR Racing 2 continued to drive player engagement, retention, and monetization with innovative new profile banners for players to collect.
Speaker 3: We remain quite pleased with our hyper casual mobile business. Popcore achieved strong results during its first full quarter under our ownership. Additionally, Rollick has increased its profitability, and the studio celebrated several milestones during the period, including the first anniversary of its title, Fill the Fridge, and it's social media inspired.
Speaker 3: Pressure Washing Run reaching the number one most downloaded spot in Apple's US App Store.
Speaker 3: In closing, as we continue to pursue our mission to be the most creative, the most innovative, and the most efficient entertainment company in the world, we do so incredibly well positioned with a broader portfolio of owned intellectual property, a deeper pool of the industry's top creative talent, and the sound infrastructure to capitalize on the vast opportunities on the earth.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Dros.
Speaker 4: I'd like to thank our colleagues around the world for delivering another momentous year for Take 2. Our integration with Zynga has gone incredibly well, and we continue to release many of the industry's highest quality, most engaging entertainment experiences, thanks to the incredible passion and talent of our teams. We are extremely excited about our release pipeline.
Speaker 4: which includes approximately 52 titles through fiscal 2026.
Speaker 4: Our revised plan reflects several title cancellations, as well as a reclassification of our mobile games to include only those titles currently in our plans for worldwide launch.
Speaker 4: For fiscal 2024, our pipeline includes 16 plan releases.
Speaker 4: We expect to deliver three immersive core offerings. This includes NBA 2K24 and WWE 2K24, our genre-defining sports titles developed by Visual Concepts.
Speaker 4: Additionally, we expect to release an eagerly anticipated new IP from one of our premier studios later this fiscal year.
Speaker 4: We plan to release two mid-core arcade titles, which include LEGO 2K Drive, the ultimate driving adventure game from 2K and Visual Concepts.
Speaker 4: LEGO 2K Drive brings the iconic LEGO play experience into a vast open world where players of all ages can build any vehicle, drive anywhere and become a LEGO Racing Legend.
Speaker 4: LEGO 2K Drive is the first release in a multi-title partnership between 2K and the LEGO Group.
Speaker 4: We are confident that 2K's proven expertise in creating high quality and engaging interactive entertainment properties, combined with the LEGO Group's unprecedented cultural reach, will evolve the iconic LEGO games experience that fans love in exciting new ways.
Speaker 4: We also plan to launch two new iterations of previously released titles and three independent titles, including Private Division's planned May 23rd release of After Us from Piccolo Studios.
Speaker 4: Players of After Us will navigate stunning environments in a surrealistic world to salvage the souls of the extinct animals and restore life on Earth.
Speaker 4: And lastly, we expect to release six mobile titles during the year, including Zinga's Star Wars Hunters, which offers players the opportunity to join the greatest hunters from across the Star Wars galaxy.
Speaker 4: Players will engage in thrilling third-person combat in a range of competitive game modes across battlegrounds that evoke the iconic worlds of Star Wars.
Speaker 4: Throughout the year, our Hypocasual Studios will release a steady cadence of mobile titles, focusing on games that have the potential for enhanced retention rates and a mix of in-app purchases and advertising to drive higher monetization and profitability.
Speaker 4: Our labels will also continue to provide new content and experiences that drive engagement and recurring consumer spending across many of our hit franchises.
Speaker 4: including Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Online, WWE 2K, LEGO 2K Drive, PGA Tour 2K, and throughout Zango's mobile portfolio.
Speaker 4: Looking ahead, we currently expect to deliver 36 titles throughout fiscal 2025 and 2026. As always, these plans are a snapshot of our current development pipeline. It is likely that some of these titles will not be developed through completion, that launch timing may change, and that we will also add new titles to our slate.
Speaker 4: Our release slate for fiscal 2025 and 2026 includes 14 immersive core releases, six of which are sports simulation games.
Speaker 4: two mid-core games, one of which will be sports oriented.
Speaker 4: Four new iterations of previously released titles.
Speaker 4: Four independent titles from Private Division, two of which include our previously announced partnerships with Weta Workshop and Game Freak.
Speaker 4: and 12 mobile games. In addition to our full game releases, we will continue to offer post-launch content for nearly all of our titles, including virtual currency, DLC packs, and season passes.
Speaker 4: Given the strength of our upcoming release schedule and the high degree of visibility we have into our pipeline, we believe that we'll achieve the record levels of results that Strauss mentioned, including over $8 billion in net bookings and over $1 billion in adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow in fiscal 2025, with further growth in fiscal 2026 and beyond.
As we approach the significant inflection point in our business, we believe our expanding scale and margins will generate industry-leading returns for our shareholders.
I'll now turn the call over to Lainey. Thanks, Karl. Good afternoon, everyone. Today I'll discuss the key highlights from our fourth quarter in fiscal 2023 before reviewing our financial outlook for the full year and first quarter of fiscal 2024. Please note that our results include our combination with ZINGA, which affects the comparability of our results relative to last year.
Additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release.
I'm so proud of our team for their strong execution and unwavering focus throughout the year.
We made fantastic progress on our integration with Zynga, delivered incredible high quality content and announced several exciting new games from our pipeline.
Efficiency was also a major area of focus. We announced our cost reduction program in February and as part of our ongoing portfolio management process, we cancelled several titles that we anticipated would not meet our internal hurdle rates. We are confident that all these steps will help grow our scale, enhance our long-term margin structure, and ultimately deliver sustainable returns for our stakeholders.
As Strauss mentioned, we finished fiscal 2023 with momentum and delivered fourth quarter net bookings of $1.39 billion, which was above our guidance range of $1.31 to $1.36 billion. This reflected better than expected results from Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Xingyis Mobile Portfolio.
During the period, the current consumer spending rose 115%, which was above our outlook of 105% growth and accounted for 78% of net bookings. The app performance is primarily driven by Zenga and Grand Theft Auto Online.
Additionally, delivery net bookings increase 76% of our guidance of 70% growth and accounted for 97% of the total.
During the quarter, 78% of console game sales were delivered digitally, up from 75% last year.
GAAP net revenue increased 56 percent to $1.45 billion and cost of revenue increased 207 percent to $1.22 billion, which included impairment charges of $465 million related to intangible assets acquired from Zinga, reflecting forecast changes for a few titles.
and $54 million relating to capitalized software and development costs for unreleased and canceled console and PC titles, the latter of which was included in our management results.
Operating expenses increased by 130% to $926 million, which primarily reflected the addition of Zinga, which is partially offset by lower marketing expenses.
And GAP net loss was $610 million, or $3.62 per share, which includes $302 million of amortization of Acquired Intangibles and $45 million of business acquisition costs.
Excluding the $54 million impairment charge, our management earnings would have been above the high end of our guidance range.
Turning to our fiscal 2023 results, total net bookings were $5.28 billion, which was above our guidance of $5.2 to $5.25 billion. While the challenging macroeconomic backdrop affected certain components of our portfolio, we experienced favorable performance within our catalog of industry-leading intellectual properties.
and Zingya had a strong finish to the year. Her current consumer spending increased 88%, which was slightly above her outlook of 85% growth and accounted for 78% of net bookings.
Digitally delivered netbookings increased 63%, which was also above our guidance of 60% growth and accounted for 95% of the total. And during the year, 74% of our console game sales were delivered digitally, up from 68% last year.
Non-GAAP-adjusted, unrestricted operating cash flow was $56 million as compared to our outlook of over $400 million.
During fiscal 2023, we spent $204 million on capital expenditures.
At Fiscally Rent, we had cash and short-term investments of approximately $1 billion in debt of $3.1 billion.
GAPnet revenue grew 53% to $5.35 billion and cost of revenue increased 100% to $3.1 billion, which included impairment charges of $465 million related to intangible assets acquired from Zynga and $79 million related to capitalized software and development costs for unreleased and canceled titles, the latter of which was included in our management results.
Operating expenses increased 131% to $3.45 billion, which primarily reflected the addition of Zynga, as well as higher personnel, stock compensation, and IT expenses.
And GAPnet loss was $1.12 billion, or $7.03 per share, which includes $1.04 billion of amortization of acquired substantial and $270 million of business acquisition costs.
Today, we provided our initial outlook for fiscal 2024. We project net bookings to range from $5.45 billion to $5.55 billion.
The largest contributors to NetBookings are expected to be NBA2K, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Grand Theft Auto 5, our hyper casual mobile portfolio, Empires and Puzzles, Toon Blast, Words with Friends, Merced Dragons, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Red Dead Online, and Zynga Poker. We expect the NetBookings breakdown from our labels to be roughly 53% Zynga.
compared to fiscal 2023 and represents 79% of netbooking.
Our forecast assumes that 76% of console game sales will be delivered digitally.
We expect to generate approximately $100 million in non-GAAP adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow, and we plan to deploy approximately $180 million for capital expenditures. We expect GAAP net revenue to range from $5.37 to $5.47 billion and cost of revenue to range from $2.51 to $2.54 billion.
Our total operating expenses are expected to range from $3.39 to $3.41 billion as compared to $3.45 billion last year. At the midpoint, this represents a 1% reduction reflecting lower acquisition costs, realization of synergies from our combination with Zinga, and savings from our cost reduction program which are part of our total operating expenses.
partly offset by a full year of Zinga, higher stock compensation and personal expenses, driven by the annualization of new hires, and the effect of inflation on other business operating expenses primarily reflected in IT costs.
We expect the gap net loss ranging from $477 to $518 million, or $2.80 to $3.05 per share, which assumes a basic share count of 170.1 million shares. For management reporting purposes, we expect our tax rate to be 18% throughout fiscal 2024.
I'd like to acknowledge that our current forecast for fiscal 2024 reflects the continuation of the challenging economic environment as well as an extension of the development timeline for several high profile and long-awaited titles. While this affects our expectations for our current fiscal year, our high degree of visibility into our pipeline gives us confidence that we are approaching a significant inflection point in our business where we will achieve new record levels of results.
for our business next year and beyond.
Now moving on to our guidance for the fiscal first quarter. We project net bookings to range from $1.15 to $1.2 billion, which reflects the full quarter of Zenga compared to $1 billion in the first quarter last year. Most contributors to net bookings are expected to be MBA2K.
Grand Theft Auto Online, Grand Theft Auto 5, our hyper-casual mobile portfolio, Empire's Impuzzles, Toon Blast, Merced Dragon, Words with Friends, Zinger Poker, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Red Dead Online. We project the current consumer spending to increase by 35%.
A forecast assumes that 79% of console game sales will be delivered digitally, up from slightly from 77% in the game period last year.
We expect gap net revenue to range from $1.21 to $1.26 billion and cost of revenue to range from $572 to $592 million.
Operating expenses are expected to range from $827 to $837 million. At the midpoint, this represents an 18% increase over last year, which reflects a full quarter of Zinga and higher stock compensation, personnel, and IT expenses based on the factors I mentioned previously.
And gap net loss is expected to range from $161 to $178 million, or $0.95 to $1.05 per share, which assumes a basic share count of 169.4 million shares.
We believe that we are very well positioned in our industry to deliver the highest quality content, gain market share and enhance our profitability as we grow our scale and maintain our focus on efficiency. We are extremely excited about our next chapter of growth and we look forward to our labels, sharing more details about the many exciting projects we have underway. Thank you. I'll now turn the call back to Strauss. Thank you, Carl and Lainey and thank you.
Thank you.
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One moment please while we pull for questions.
Our first question comes from Andrew Erkowitz with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Yes, hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess I'll just skip right to fiscal 25 and 26.
pretty rare that you guys give to your guide like this and we've seen quite a few delays across the industry. Could you just give a little additional color on where the confidence is coming from on being able to provide that to us today?
Yes, you're right. It's very uncharacteristic of us to talk about subsequent years at this time. We're doing so because we've been investing in a pipeline for a long time and we now have a great deal of confidence that that pipeline will be delivered in the next three years, 12 titles in fiscal 2436 and the following two years.
About 44% of that is new intellectual property. The rest is new iterations of existing franchises, and that's mobile, console, PC, and numerous business models. We couldn't be more excited. Fiscal 24's titles look good. And as I said, we're...
were very confident in the years to come as well. And we thought it was important to convey that with transparency today. And then just with the, I think, 44% of new IP, when you're looking this far out, you're going to see
Can you walk us through a little bit of how you think about modeling those, the conservatism you are thinking about in some of those, or just kind of how you come up with the forecast for the new IP? Thank you. So as you know, new IP is always a little bit of a wild card and it's difficult to predict exactly how it's going to behave. Obviously, we are not completely flying blind because we do have a pretty comprehensive...
of outlying success. Obviously, everything that we invest in and everything that we release, we're looking to achieve that outlying success. And we know for a fact that not every single one of our titles will achieve that. But that is the game we're in, and that's why we're making these investments in new IP, which ultimately is the lifeblood of our industry. And that's why we're still very much dedicated to doing that. Got it. Thank you so much. Appreciate the color.
and the industry. And then just secondly as we think about...
the headcount and the infrastructure that we now have in place? Are we kind of at a place where you have what you need?
to pursue this aggressive pipeline, or do we still need some more invest? I'm just trying to think about the OpEx leverage and how to think about that as we kind of flow through the out years. Thanks again everyone. Thanks. Yes, as you know I'm usually a skeptic when others engage in hyperbole. In the case of AI, I'm pretty enthusiastic. First of all –
despite the fact that artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, as is machine learning. This company's been involved in those activities no matter what words you use to describe them for its entire history. We're a leader in the space. So while the most recent...
developments in AI are surprising and exciting to many. They're exciting to us, but not at all surprising. Our view is that AI will allow us to do a better job and to do a more efficient job. And you're talking about tools and they are...
simply better and more effective tools. I wish I could say that the advances in AI will make it easier to create hits. Obviously it won't. Hits are created by genius and data sets plus compute plus large language models does not equal genius.
genius is the domain of human beings, and I believe will stay that way. However, I think jobs can be made a whole lot easier and more efficient by developments in AI, and we're certainly looking forward to that, and as I said, we're already putting it in practice every day.
So your second question in terms of cost. So from an op, I'm not sure exactly what you meant by operating expenses, so I'll just kind of break it down about overhead. So publishing overhead and corporate overhead, I would say generally speaking, we're kind of at scale. We have what we need. That's not to say to achieve our plan over the next few years.
That's not to say that we won't still be investing in those areas and there will be cost increases associated with that. We're always looking for efficiencies, but people do get raises and we find needs as new opportunities arise. So, can't stand here and say that we don't have any more investment in publishing and corporate overhead, but we certainly believe that we're at scale. And we also believe that that's an opportunity for us to expand our margins based on the fact that we are...
Part of our plan is to continue investing in that area.
Thank you. Our next question is from Matthew Cost with Morgan Stanley . Please proceed with your question.
Hi everybody, thanks for taking the questions. The first one is just about the long-term guidance. I think you mentioned growth in fiscal 26 off of the base of fiscal 25. Presumably there's quite a few units of new games that are being launched in that year. I guess when you think out into fiscal 25,
this fiscal year. I think the game has been in development for some time. Are you seeing something in the mobile gaming market as sort of stabilization or improvement of marketing efficiency that makes you feel this is the right time to come out with the game? Thank you. So in terms of our confidence in talking about what would grow...
it's all of the above. But in the end it's based on us delivering the pipeline that we have on plan and achieving the results that we expect. I really don't have
Do you want to go, Hunter? Yeah, on Star Wars, Hunter, you asked about the market backdrop. We are seeing some improvement in year-over-year comps. Mobile really was under a lot of pressure. The market is recovering a bit. It's still down year-over-year. In certain instances, we appear to be overperforming. And we're excited about many developments at Zynga. For example, in the Accad lamp, which is from Star Wars died,
Advertising penetration, advertising that represents 27% of Zynga's net bookings, which is great. That will continue to improve. We're excited also about our direct consumer platform, which obviously has an effect on our margins, a beneficial effect on our margins. So I think the backdrop is stable and perhaps improving a little bit. At the end of the day, what will matter of course is the quality of the title. Mobile is a very competitive space.
new standards in the industry and I know quality is a big piece of that but we'll be also curious to know beyond that what specific areas of innovation within your games you would say you know keep the portfolio ahead of the competition.
And then regarding the fiscal 25 commentary, I would just be curious out of that more than $2.5 billion in incremental bookings next year, what portion of that should we think of as falling into RCS versus I guess unit sales? Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for your question. In terms of how do you define innovation, if it had one definition, I think it would stop being innovation pretty quickly. I think our labels are known for leading in...
in new areas, whether that's a 3D view when there wasn't one before, whether that was downloadable add-on content many years ago or in-game purchases, virtual currency, or the like, whether that was the neighborhood or the city, an NBA 2K, GTA online, Red Dead online. That's what I'm doing.
internal email exchange earlier today talking about the unknown unknowns. We know in the next 10 years there will be extraordinary changes in this industry. This is a highly dynamic industry and we need to be not only current, we need to be leading the charge. Sometimes historically we have, other times we've missed the boat.
And we want to be at the front of the line and our creative folks work in service of their passions to make the best entertainment anyone creates on earth. And again, we don't always succeed, but often we do. Our track record's pretty great creatively and that's thanks to our...
9,000 developers who work here and another 1,500 who work outside of our four walls to do work that Take-Two brings to market. So I'm sort of highly optimistic on the one hand and very mindful that this is a really ambitious challenge and the ambition is, you know, it's an emotional burden for everyone who works here but also a great benefit when we succeed.
On your second point, I think you asked us to distinguish between RCS and console sales, and full game sales. Right, so for fiscal year 25, we are really excited to talk about it. It's a highly anticipated year, and we're really happy to talk about us hitting $8 billion.
in netbookings, but we aren't talking about what the detail of that is at this time.
Thanks, guys. Thank you. Our next question is from Doug Krauts with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question. Okay.
Hey thank you. I just wanted to talk about your adjusted operating cash flow margins for a minute. If I go back to fiscal 18 through fiscal 21 you were pretty consistently in the low mid 20% range. It slipped down below then since then I think is a function of you investing against your future pipeline. Your fiscal 25 guide is over a billion in...
OCF against over $8 billion in bookings, which is still only about a 12.5% margin, if my math is correct, which seems low. Do you expect that in fiscal 25 you are still going to be investing heavily against future opportunities? Do you expect to get back to that 20% plus range in 25 or thereafter? Any kind of call you're given, that would be great. Thank you.
years, so that will definitely be affecting the AUOCF in those years as well.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Clay Griffin with Moffett Nathanson. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks for the question. Thanks for taking the question. I guess I'm thinking about the marketing strategies for some of these big, highly anticipated titles different now than they were say maybe in the.
Red Dead 2 launch. I mean, notwithstanding the fact that a larger number of titles ought to bring a higher level of marketing support in the aggregate. I'm curious if the overall level of marketing efficiency against bookings is materially different now than maybe the prior generation. I guess in other words, awareness of your IP is already quite high. So just curious on that. I would say that the...
for targeted spending, performance marketing, et cetera. And it also used to be that a big portion of the marketing budget was spent prior to the release, in the weeks prior to the release, and certainly within the couple weeks following the release. We still will spend a significant amount of marketing in and around the launch date.
but it is much more spread out because we have the ability to monetize for a much longer period of time and there are certain opportunities for us to market additional content drops. So you would see our marketing budgets are definitely spread out.
what sounded like a one-time cash tax issue in Q4. I just wanted to confirm that and just give us a sense of what that was. We expect that to repeat and just kind of general framework for thinking about cash taxes going forward. Thanks.
but it is, you know, our tax balances for each year. So it's something that we'll have tax payments every year going forward.
But the rate that you guys have been speaking to is there's no sense that that's moving one direction or the other.
Well, we have an 18% estimated tax rate is in our management rate, and that's an annual rate that we use for every year. Great. Okay. So we're actually taking ourir total $ goats.
Thank you. Our next question is from Omar Dusoke with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. So I guess I was wondering if you could maybe parse out a little bit implied in your operating income guidance, you know, mobile versus PC console.
I think a number of your peers guided profits roughly at the same levels for calendar 23, as was calendar 22, and was just wondering, just for starters, whether your implied guide is up or down, if you could tell me that. Then I have a follow-up question. Why are we giving you theurt Self-A Carlos?
2022 full year. And I was wondering whether your guidance implies your profitability for Zynga and your take two mobile business up or down. I realize there's a number of moving pieces such as potential revenue synergies, reducing the cost of advertising and of course cost synergies.
you know, are you, it's your implied guide for mobile up or down versus last year.
like for like including 53 days of Zynga. Yes, so on a like to like basis for a comparable 12 months, the single mobile business is up year over year.
Okay, great. And I'm also glad that you guys addressed the $500 million of annual netbooking opportunities in the presentation.
So I wanted to dig into that for a second. I think you you have
The first question on that is can you give us any sense of the cadence of how you might get to $500 million in terms of fiscal 24, fiscal 25, fiscal 26? The reason I ask that is because you guys did put out a cadence in the S4, obviously, that's a long time ago.
any update there would be great. So the cadence first and then the second, the ramp to 500 million and then the second one is you have a couple of bullet points here establishing a more meaningful presence in key mobile first emerging markets and introducing mobile games from some of our most popular and proven intellectual properties.
So, does that include high fidelity mobile games? Is that what you're referring to there? And specifically for Asian markets, potentially using some of your PC console IP? Lots of questions. Appreciate your responses.
It's Carl. So in terms of some of the cadence around the $500 million revenue synergies, obviously we're still very committed to that and we feel very good about those opportunities for us. I think in the near term there are several meaningful opportunities that we believe we can actually start to begin to activate this fiscal year.
And those are really more around expanding our D2C efforts more meaningfully in some of our other games. And also things like implementing new Bode beats, marketing beats across the company, user acquisition optimization, creating centralized library of customer data across the company, integrating the Take-Two databases with the Zynga databases.
properties on the T2 side into the mobile space. That's something that we're having conversations right now, nothing to announce specifically, but the conversations are happening and I would characterize them as very positive and people are excited about that opportunity. I'm not really sure I understood the sort of reference to Asia and high fidelity, et cetera, but these are intellectual properties. Think about them as some of our...
some of our more core type games. And by definition, you would expect, and again, I don't have anything to announce right now because we don't have any games necessarily in development in that regard, that those games would be a little bit more upmarket. Because we do believe that there's a market for that. You've seen some success in the mobile space with other folks bringing their titles to market. Call of Duty is a perfect example of that.
We think that there are several of our titles that have that kind of opportunity. And I would expect those games to be a little bit more towards the mid-core arena. I hope that answers your question.
Absolutely it does. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question is from Martin Yang with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon. Thank you for sending the question. First question on Zynga. Can you tell us if Zynga's developer headcount growth seems to have been acquired? Yeah, we don't break out the headcount label by label, but we did say that we have about 9,000 internal development people at the company.
Thank you. My second question is broader, I want to get your broader view on console cycles. When do you stop, when do you plan to stop supporting past gen consoles? And what goes into the decision stopping our for the past gen consoles for certain franchise or fraud overall?
take to release games. It really varies. I mean, obviously, our labels will continue to support platforms for which they believe there's a meaningful audience. And if and when the audience diminishes to a point where it's not economical to do so, we stop supporting the platforms.
In general, we're pretty supportive on an ongoing basis.
we're pretty supportive on an ongoing basis. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Fitzgerald with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks a couple questions on consumer pricing not with your titles but we've seen discounting on some of your competitors recent releases they were anticipated triple-a titles but were being discounted within days and weeks so do you think the the gamer is still struggling a little bit with you know coming to terms with $70 price points
Maybe still macro impacted and then the second one related to pricing is again you saw strong RCS performance historically the narrative has been you know gaming spending is resilient because even in macro Because you get that bang for buck. You know relatively low cost
per hour of entertainment. At the same time, the model is evolving to more live services, more RCS. Is that RCS spend just as resilient as the historical industry consumer spend has been?
We've talked about this in the past. I mean, to take your second question first, we do think that live services spending is probably more affected by macroeconomic conditions because you don't need to spend. If you have the game, you can enjoy the game. There are certain titles that we don't really put ours into this category where...
you kind of have toll booths if you don't pay, you really can't play, but that doesn't describe any of our titles, mobile or console. So we think of spending in a live services environment as a nice to have for the consumer, not a must have. And as a result, if the consumer is feeling a pinch, that might be an area that would be.
more likely to be influenced negatively. In terms of the pricing point that you raised, we're not seeing a pushback on a frontline price. What we're seeing is consumers are seeking to limit their spending by going either to the stuff they really, really care about, blockbusters, or to value. And sometimes it could be both. And the good news is we have a bunch of blockbusters and we have a wonderful...
Nothing that's going on now is inconsistent with the view that we outlined during the pandemic. You know, we said at that time we were benefiting greatly from people being at home in an odd turn of events, and we set our expectations that post-pandemic we'd as an industry be in a better place than pre-pandemic and a worse place than during a time when people were sheltering at home, and that's exactly what's happened.
exacerbated by a challenging mixed economy. And what I believe is a recession, at least if you look at it through the lens of people who purvey digital entertainment consumed at home and e-commerce suppliers. There's a lot of pressure in those markets. But the overall tailwinds of the industry will continue. This is a growth business. It will remain.
Awesome, thanks Drouse, really appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Hickey with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.
Hey Strauss, Carl, Laney, Nicole, thanks guys for asking my questions. Congrats on your, I guess it's congrats on your 25 guide, no pressure guys, I like doing it right on the nose. Just curious.
You didn't guide the profitability, I don't expect you to now. That $8 billion was a little bit above consensus view. Just curious how we should think about profitability. I think the consensus for 25 is over $8 at EPS. Don't expect to confirm that either way, but just thoughts on how we should think about profitability on 25, especially given...
Just curious if you think that we'll have any challenges in terms of more competitors coming to the market. Thanks guys.
Thanks, Mike. Well, we basically have indicated profitability by talking about our operating cash flow. You're right. We haven't gotten granular because we're not providing initial specific guidance, but we do expect that fiscal 25, 26 and beyond will be highly profitable years. And we've said repeatedly and in these remarks today, we expect to grow our margins.
come up with a great idea for a new mobile hit. Oh, and by the way, please code it for me too. And while you can do that now, you should give it a try and you'll see what happens because we certainly have tried it around here. And let's just say that no, you will not be able to create hits that way. I mean remember, what you're looking at with AI and what you will always be looking at is a data set compute.
and at least sitting here today, large language models. And in the future, you may not be looking at large language models or they will change, but you'll still be looking at a data set and compute. And a data set by definition is backward looking, and hits in the entertainment business by definition are forward looking.
And no matter how intelligent, and I use the word in quotes, very much in quotes, maybe multiple quotes, a machine is. A machine is not going to be able to look forward. A machine can predict based on data sets and using massive compute and using large language models.
We're all super excited about what we see because we haven't seen before the possibility of doing a natural language query and getting a natural language result. That looks incredibly cool. But to confuse that result with intelligence and creativity is like confusing a magic trick with magic. It's not magic. It's still a magic trick.
So that's where I'm at on this. No AI is not going to allow people to push a button to make a hit. However, AI is going to make certain elements of any process that requires coding easier for everyone, for everyone. Not disproportionately for anyone, for everyone.
So that's where I'm at on this. No AI is not going to allow people to push a button to make a hit. However, AI is going to make certain elements of any process that requires coding easier for everyone, for everyone, not disproportionately for anyone, for everyone.
Thank you. As a reminder, we ask that you limit to one question to allow for as many questions as possible. We ask that you limit to one question to allow for as many questions as possible.
Our next question is from Derek Johnson with BMO Capital Markets.
is from Derek Johnson with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Great, thank you. On the topic of delivering mobile games direct to consumer, what kind of share are you targeting for downloads in MTX? And then what kind of margin lift would you see on a game by game basis as well as consolidated basis? So we haven't disclosed what our target is. We do think it's a significant opportunity for us. So it certainly is greater than zero and less than a hundred percent.
Well, I mean, again, I don't think we've talked about the margins, but you can kind of back into them yourself. I mean, we're doing it ourselves, and the take rate obviously is much, much, much lower because you're really talking about payment clearances and things of that nature.
When you go D to C, there are other rates that may be in them. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Benjamin Soft with...
Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Hey guys, thanks for taking the question. Just one on the slide, so Lego Drive is listed under the Mid-Core section, but it seems like a $70 price point with a full year of seasonal updates, and to me that would seem like a triple-A title. So do you mind expanding a bit on the difference between immersive and mid-core in your mind?
And then apologies if I missed it, but are you expecting both top line and bottom line growth in fiscal 26? Thanks. So in terms of – it's a funny question you asked, because we've debated this exact thing internally whether or not – like a Lego title for example is a mid-core title, mid-core slash arcade or is it a –
sort of the over it if you compare that experience to a Grand Theft Auto for example obviously there's a big difference in the depth of the storyline the vastness of the world etc. Lego Drive is an open-world driving experiences but it's not Los Santos so there's quite a bit of it and it's you know it's probably not even the city at NBA so the term
It's probably a little bit of art in terms of how we classify things, but in this particular case just given the look in the field again, we thought that mid-core and slash arcade was the right categorization of it. But there's no specific guideline other than in this particular case, it kind of felt that way.
And I should also say, sorry, Eleni was about to answer the other question, whether it's mid-core or arcade versus core or immersive, that doesn't necessarily indicate our expectations about commercial success, because you can have a commercially successful title that's mid-core or casual.
Okay, got it. And then for fiscal 26, what we've said is that we expect net bookings and operational results to be higher than fiscal 25. So that would imply that it would both be growing.
Okay, got it. And then for fiscal 26, what we've said is that we expect net bookings and operational results to be higher than fiscal 25. So that would imply that both would be growing. Okay, got it. Thank you guys.
Thank you. Our next question is from Steven Dew with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Okay. Thank you. So, Strauss, I certainly do not want to put words in your mouth, but your answer to one of the prior questions sounded like you were talking about incremental bar bailing of industry dollars.
I guess similar to what we were seeing during the financial crisis and I guess in an environment where only the AAA and the value games are going to capture dollars and the stuff in the middle may be in some trouble. So what are you doing at the studio level that is different now to maybe adjust for that environment? And Karl, what are you doing at the…
strategies that everything that we put out should be just spectacular and more just a reflection of where the consumer sits. And the consumer will return and this is going to be a growth business. As long as we make the highest quality titles, we should do just fine. Pride Division's approach has never been based on sort of taking a shortcut on quality. This approach has been let's bring into the tent.
developers who might not otherwise bring their products to take two. And in certain instances, we can deliver an A-plus title on a more economical level than we might be able to do in-house. And that's been proven out, and Private Division has generated a lot of successful titles. In fact, virtually everything they've done, not everything, but virtually everything has been successful.
We talked about DTC on the mobile side. You guys have DTC experience with the Rockstar Launcher on the PC side. If we think of a couple years given the scale you are going to be at as the world perhaps starts to take more steps towards streaming, do you see the opportunity to perhaps partner on the back end or white label the streaming back end to go to the back end?
we did so well is that we basically were willing to do business with everyone whose terms made sense to us and who were good market participants in terms of security and compliance. And to the extent that streaming is a viable business opportunity and technology for our industry, of course we'll avail ourselves of it. And I'm certain we'll work with third parties as we have in the past.
So I think that's all the questions we have today. Thank you so much for joining us. We're thrilled with these results. We're more than thrilled with our outlook. I want to reiterate our gratitude to our teams around the world who show up every day with more or less with smiles on their faces, mostly with smiles.
aiming to do their very best work in pursuing their passions. I want to thank our business teams who bring their great work to market and make sure that we run our business in a first-class fashion. And of course, I want to thank our shareholders for their support and confidence in us. Have a great day.
best work in pursuing their passions. I want to thank our business teams who bring their great work to market and make sure that we run our business in a first-class fashion. And of course, I want to thank our shareholders for their support and confidence in us. Have a great day.
Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
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