Red Dead Redemption massive ships 17 million copies in first 8 days

Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 has "sold-in," or shipped to retailers, more than 17 million copies in its first eight days of sales.

The epic Western game has an average score of 97-out-of-100 on the aggregator Metacritic, and Take-Two had previously said it was more than $ 725 million in the first quarter of the year. .

Now Take-Two said that the game sold-in to the original copies of the original blockbuster Red Dead Redemption sold in its first eight years, as of today, the title has sold-in over 17 million units worldwide .

"As a result of our strong second quarter performance and outstanding early results from Red Dead Redemption 2, we are raising our fiscal outlook for fiscal 2019, which is also poised to be a record year," said Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two. , in a statement. "Looking ahead, we have a strong development pipeline over our labels and are exceedingly well established for long-term growth growth and margin expansion."

Take-Two formerly said that Red Dead Redemption 2 was sold in its first three days.

Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter said 15 million copies are in the pipeline, with a conservative number and 20 million copies. If Red Dead stays at the 70 percent level, 20 million is doable by early December, Schachter said in a report.

The numbers released today show that 17 million copies are in the hands of retailers, as opposed to consumer's hands. But the number is encouraging, as they are going to sell out.

"Red Dead Redemption 2," said Zelnick, in an analyst call. "I would like to congratulate the whole team at Rockstar Games for once again raising the bar for what can be achieved in interactive entertainment."

Take-Two did not say whether the game is profitable yet. Developer Rockstar Games listed more than 2,800 contributors to the game in its thank-you note, but obviously it was only possible to start the project more than eight years ago. (Zelnick said 2,000 team members contributed, which means there was a substantial number of external contributors).

Take-Two's capitalized software costs – the measure of how much it has invested in software that has not launched yet. Take-Two's balance for those costs is $ 733 million. That's about 4,200 employees across 17 studios, according to Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two.

Keep in mind that Rockstar and Take-Two continue to make money from the five-year-old Grand Theft Auto V (which has sold nearly 100 million copies), moreover GTA Online. Rockstar plans to release

In the earnings call, Zelnick said he does not believe that Red Dead Redemption 2 is cannibalizing sales of GTA V, nor does he expect it to happen in the future.

As for marketing expenses, Zelnick said the company will support the title but it will be declined. Take-Two said it could generate $ 2.5 trillion to $ 2.6 trillion in fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, thanks to greater expectations for Red Dead Redemption 2.