Take-Two Says GTA 6 Pre-Orders "Vastly" Beat Its Forecasts

Take-Two Interactive wants everyone to know that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders are enormous, but its CEO Strauss Zelnick refuses to name a number, which is a little odd considering it was front and center at the company's latest earnings day.

Speaking on the call and, separately, to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, Zelnick reached for every big adjective in the thesaurus. Pre-orders were unprecedented, astonishing, exceptional, and when asked directly if they beat the company's internal forecasts, Zelnick said they were much higher, that they "vastly" beat them. As Schreier put it, the CEO did just about everything except say or confirm any number.

Nearly two months in, you're expecting something more concrete. Pre-orders opened on June 25, which handed Rockstar Games and its parent company more than a month of receipts to study before the November 19 launch. Beating internal forecasts means the publisher set private targets for how many people would put money down early, and reality sailed past them. It all sounds like a victory lap, except Zelnick isn't telling us by how much the next Grand Theft Auto just set the bar higher than its predecessor.

However, Zelnick did have a reason for his refusal to name a figure. He said the company genuinely cannot tell yet what the early pre-order surge means. Some of it may be demand pulled forward, people buying now who would have bought anyway, rather than proof the game sells more copies overall. Nobody knows the demand curve, in his words, because a launch like this has never happened before. So Take-Two held its full-year outlook steady rather than raising it on the back of the hype, even though the range sits under what Wall Street wanted.

Yes, the stock has already priced in a monster year for Rockstar and GTA 6, so you'd understand why Zelnick refused to throw out a single pre-order number. If it were to disappoint, the story could easily flip from record-setting to disappointment, sending stock prices crashing overnight.

Keeping the figure vague is Zelnick managing expectations and doing his job. He gets the glow of "unprecedented" without handing anyone a hard number to hold him to later. "Vastly" beat expectations is unfalsifiable when nobody outside the building knows what the expectation was, or what the result is. You are asked to take the size on faith.

The good news is that GTA V and the previous GTA 6 records set enough of a precedent that Zelnick's "empty" words carry a lot more weight than they should.

To be fair to Zelnick, beating quietly ambitious numbers by a lot is not nothing. Analysts have already floated eye-watering valuations tied to this launch, and the demand is real. He's just purposely withholding the precise sales numbers.

So, for now, we'll have to go by Zelnick's words that pre-orders are, by the only account we have, gigantic. The company that shared that fact will not attach a number to it or let it nudge the forecast. Anyway, we're past spreadsheets for now. GTA 6 is headed to Netflix on August 27, which is a big deal in its own and different way, and this first look is meant to silence all naysayers and turn those who are still on the fence about buying GTA 6 into sure buyers.

Everything from here points at one date on the calendar, and at a launch Take-Two has effectively bet its whole year on. The pre-orders say the bet is working. Zelnick just will not tell you by how much.