Bioshock 2 Delay Costs Take-Two $65-125m? News

As a result of the delay to the release of Bioshock 2, Take Two Interactive today updated its financial forecast for the remainder of the current fiscal year ending October 31st 2009.

Revenue forecasts for the third quarter ending July 31st are down by $25 million to $120-130 million compared to earlier predictions of $145-165 million, while revenues for the fourth quarter have been reduced by $70-100 million to between $350 and $400 million.  As a result, revenue for the fiscal year is expected to reach $960 million - $1 billion compared with earlier forecasts of $1.05 - 1.15 billion.

Subtracting the reduced revenue from Q3 from the downward prediction for the current fiscal year reveals a reduction of between $65 and $125 million, which has given an indication of how much Take Two stands to loose on sales of Bioshock 2 during the period.

During a conference call following the financial update, a Take-Two executive claimed that delaying Bioshock 2 was a key element in the revised forecast:

"The Bioshock move represented the majority of the change but not all of it by any means."

Take-Two had confirmed in its previous financials for the second quarter that both Mafia 2 and Red Dead Redemption had been pushed back into the next financial year, so the effect of these bears no relation to today's downcast.  The initial Winter 2009 release date of Max Payne 3 also suggests that this would have no bearing on the current fiscal year ended October 31st 2009.

Of course other factors come into play.  Take-Two confirmed that retail channels had been sluggish across the board; however the impact of this and other factors has to be negligible compared to the delay of Bioshock 2.

Although TVG has no expertise in financial analysis (we're using Business Study lessons from 13 years ago) and wouldn't advise jumping to your stockbroker based on any of our information, the likely loss offset seems to suggest Take-Two predicted sales of Bioshock 2 to stand between 1.3 million and 2.5 million copies before the end of the current financial year.

Of course all of that's inconsequential now and knocking numbers from this year's sheet merely means there's more to be added to next year's balance, which has already prompted an Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst to predict Take-Two dominating in 2010.