From Red Dead to Dead Profits… Is GTA VI the Lifeline Take-Two Desperately Needs?

If you’re both a gamer and a stock market investor, this might be the most important article you’ll ever read. (This should be a joke, but sadly it’s true.) Why? We’re talking about Take-Two Interactive—the parent company of Rockstar Games, known for iconic series like Red Dead Redemption and, of course, the mother of all open-world chaos, Grand Theft Auto.

And while Take-Two’s games might have you glued to your controller for hours, its stock has been, well... less exciting. Think of it like a mission in GTA where you keep failing the same heist over and over. Take-Two’s stock has returned just 16% over the past five years.

And it gets worse. The company’s profits have pulled a full 180. Flipping from $355 million in 2022 to a rather sad -$336 million in their latest earnings report. Yes, you read that right—negative profits. And yet, the stock price hasn’t exactly tanked. It's only down 2% since 2022, almost as if the market is holding its breath, waiting for Rockstar's next big move: Grand Theft Auto VI.

Speaking of GTA VI, everyone’s been talking about it for what feels like a century, but it’s finally expected to drop in 2025—and it just might give Take-Two’s stock the shot of Mountain Dew at 2 a.m. Analysts are crossing their fingers that this long-awaited release will work wonders for the company's bottom line.

Benchmark’s analysts are leading the charge, recently bumping their price target to $210 and sticking with a “buy” rating, clearly betting on GTA VI’s ability to move the needle. Bank of America is in the same boat, slapping a $185 price target on the stock, also with a “buy” rating. They’re expecting revenue to spike by 44% in 2026, with earnings set to potentially triple.

But don’t get too excited. The stock already has a pretty high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 59x, meaning the market has likely baked in a good chunk of these projected sales already. Back when GTA V launched, the stock price surged 28% in the year after release, but that was when Take-Two's P/E was much lower. In other words, we might not see the same level of explosive growth this time around.

GTA VI isn’t the only trick Take-Two has up their sleeve. The company just dropped big news at Gamescom (the gaming world's equivalent of the Super Bowl) with announcements for Mafia: The Old Country and Borderlands 4. Both games are set to release in 2025, and while they don’t have the star power of GTA, they still carry some weight.

The Borderlands series has sold over 87 million copies to date, and Mafia has moved 34 million units, so these titles should give Take-Two some extra firepower. But again, with GTA being the headliner, it's hard for anything else to get people excited.

One of the bigger developments for Take-Two in recent years was their acquisition of mobile gaming giant Zynga in 2022. While the deal has given mobile revenue a shot in the arm, it’s not what they were hoping for. Mobile now accounts for 51% of Take-Two's revenue, but growth has been pretty flat.

So, should you be buying Take-Two stock ahead of GTA VI’s release? Well, the upside isn’t bad. Analysts have set a price target of $210, which suggests a 16% gain from where it’s sitting now. But if you’re feeling nostalgic, it might be worth getting your dopamine rush by playing the game instead of investing in the stock.

P.S. While Free Stocks.News readers eventually get our alerts (think 15-20 minutes after premium members), it’s likely you’ll miss out on the big move. Why? Well, for instance, on our last alert, we dropped $OBLG to our premium members at 9:48 EST when it was chilling at a price of $3.60. However, in less than 5 minutes after alerting our premium members, $OBLG shot up +51.22% to $5.45! Meaning, FREE readers ended up missing out on 50+% of the move BEFORE they even saw the opportunity. Talk about leaving money on the table. So if that doesn’t sit right with you, and you don’t want to miss the chunk of the move during our next alert… click here immediately for the details. 

Stock.News has positions in Pepsi and Take-Two Interactive Sofware.