Last night the bean counters at Take Two Interactive released their financials for the last year and there were some surprising announcements in between all the tedious non-GAAP and loan note talking.
First up let’s take a look at the juicy sales numbers.
Borderlands 2 has now become 2K’s biggest selling title with the latest retail push helping the title sail past the 8.5 million mark. 2K, owned by Take Two, also pulled in some great sales of their signature NBA 2K series with the latest version, NBA2K14, selling over 5 million units which has pushed the franchise over the 35 million mark to date.
But the real money spinner was obviously Grand Theft Auto V which has now officially sold over 32 million copies already and is still widely expected to earn a lot more money with upcoming DLC, Xbox One and PS4 versions as well as the much-anticipated PC version.
The rest of the income earned is spread across XCOM, Bioshock, WWE, Civ 5 and GTA: San Andreas to name a few.
However those aren’t the most surprising numbers from the announcement. If you scroll all the way down Take Two have also given the breakdown of sales according to mobile, console or PC and the results are mind-blowing.
Consoles vs The Master Race
In the 2012 financial year the breakdown was as follows
- Console – 80%
- PC – 18%
- Mobile – 2%
A clear lead for the console market which is a bit of a shock since Max Payne 3 was released during that time on all platforms.
But fast forward to today and the breakdown for 2013 sales is vastly different
- Console – 97%
- PC – 3%
- Mobile – 0%
To put it bluntly Take Two is now simply a console house with that 3% barely even worth the effort of porting games over. Games like NBA2K, Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Within are debatable better on the console and with consoles having total domination inside the company you can understand why top titles like Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V simply aren’t on the immediate horizon for PC gamers.
Do we have to mention the obvious factor of piracy being a major issue on the PC and that is possibly why Take-2 are investing more into consoles than the platform of the master race?
Sales tactics and Digital vs Retail
Take Two’s new sales plan also includes bundles with their next two bundles being Borderlands 2 & Dishonoured hitting retailers on the 11th of February along with a second, decidedly odd bundle of Skyrim & Bioshock Infinite which would make a perfect Valentine’s present for that special person in your life.
And for all of those, like me, who was worried that digital sales would ruin the typical retail experience it is nice to see that Take Two’s digital sales only accounted for 3% of all their sales. Again with GTA V skewing that results quite badly. Last year digital accounted for 22% of sales as a comparison.
The last bit of interesting info is that North America counts for 45% of all Take Two sales with the rest of the world combined making up the other 55% with no region being big enough to get a special mention.
http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox-360/this-is-why-gta-v-isnt-on-pc-yet/
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