The stock of Take-Two Interactive plunged after the company announced it was delaying the release of Grand Theft Auto VI again, pushing back the much-anticipated video game by six months to November 2026.
In a statement that accompanied the company’s quarterly results, Take-Two said it’s giving the Rockstar Games “team some additional time to finish the game with the high level of polish players expect and deserve.”
Unfortunately it is also the kind of repeated pummeling the company’s bulls by now also expect and deserve.
The delay to Nov. 19 of next year means costs to complete the game continue to mount. It’s the second public delay for Grand Theft Auto VI, which was originally slated for release in fall 2025 before it was pushed to May of next year.
Grand Theft Auto VI, a crime story set in a fictional version of Miami, is expected to be one of the most lucrative video games of all time. The previous game, Grand Theft Auto V, has sold more than 220 million copies, making it the second-best-selling game ever, just below Minecraft.
Shares of Take-Two fell about 7% in extended trading after the delay was announced, overshadowing quarterly results that topped Wall Street estimates.
For the second quarter ended Sept. 30, Take-Two reported bookings of $1.96 billion, beating estimates of $1.72 billion. Adjusted earnings came to $1.46 a share, above estimates of 94 cents.
“It’s always painful when we move a date,” Chief Executive Officer Strauss Zelnick said on a call with investors. “We’ve never regretted it in retrospect.” Zelnick added that rival game companies have released unfinished products in the past rather than delaying. “They did so at their peril,” he said.
Last week, Rockstar Games fired more than 30 staffers in a move that led British labor organizers to accuse the company of union busting. The company told Bloomberg that the fired employees were leaking confidential information
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