Take-Two CEO: Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders are exceeding expectations

Imran Khan,Contributing Editor,GameDeveloper.com

November 10, 2026

schedule2 Min Readvia Rockstar

Take-Two has reported its fiscal quarter earnings for the quarter preceding Grand Theft Auto VI's arrival, reporting slight downturns in net bookings and revenue year-over-year, with its Q2 net bookings figure falling slightly below its forecasts but GAAP net revenue falling within expectations.

While the game industry is collectively holding its breath for Grand Theft Auto VI's upcoming launch, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick claimed that preorders for one of the most anticipated media releases of all time are exceeding the company's expectations. In a comment made during the second quarter earnings briefing, Zelnick commented that—despite GTA 6 not officially being released for another week—its launch trajectory is "tracking far above our initial expectations" in terms of preorder volume.

Zelnick did not expound further on Take-Two's preorder expectations for the sequel, which itself is the followup to one of the best-selling video games in history. Some analysts believe the game will sell more than 50 million copies in its first year, which may mean that even potentially lofty expectations could be exceeded. On the other hand, it is difficult to say how conservative Take-Two's launch projections might be without direct numbers.

Backing up the publisher's optimism is confirmation from PlayStation that Grand Theft Auto VI is officially the most pre-ordered game in the history of the PlayStation store, presumably since the store opened in 2006, but likewise did not share direct numbers. Xbox also made a similar claim about its own store.

The Silence Before the Storm

In other Take-Two financial news, GTA 6's predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, reached 235 million copies sold in the last quarter, pushing the overall franchise numbers for the entire Grand Theft Auto series to 480 million units.

Net bookings and net revenue for the company are down overall for the quarter ending September 30, 2026 when compared to the year prior, largely owed to a slow start for NBA 2K27, which Zelnick explains away in an interview with IGN as suffering from proximity to Grand Theft Auto VI. This year, Take-Two reported $1.6 billion in net bookings, down $276.8 million and 1.2 percent shy of targets, while net revenue came in at $1.497 billion, down $276.8 million and slightly above forecasts. For the same period, operating profit decreased by roughly $19.5 million, going from last year's loss of $98 million to a loss of $117.5 million this quarter.

Upcoming guidance, though, expects net bookings to exceed $8 billion for the full fiscal year, likely with GTA 6 leading the charge.

This reporting focused largely on Grand Theft Auto VI for good reason, and its a pattern that's reflected in Take-Two's current public product pipeline as well. While the company has announced that upcoming titles like a new Bioshock game and Ken Levine's Judas are in development, nothing on the publisher's release schedule has a date beyond Grand Theft Auto VI. For better or worse, the future is shaped like Vice City.

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About the Author

Imran Khan

Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com

Imran Khan has been in the games industry in various forms for over two decades. He has been a former senior editor at Game Informer, a professional loudmouth at Kinda Funny, and news director at Fanbyte. He has also been doing PR for Vicarious PR and Head of U.S. PR for Japanese VR studio MyDearest, in addition to Producer work on their latest title Brazen Blaze.

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