14 DAY TRIAL // After Take-Two Interactive, the publishing partner of Grand Theft Auto V developer Rockstar Games, presented its financial earnings and predictions, analysts have begun speculating that the company will help release GTA V before the end of its fiscal year, which is March 31, 2013.
Grand Theft Auto V is awaited by tens of millions of fans but, unfortunately for them, neither Rockstar Games nor Take-Two has mentioned anything about a release date.
This forced plenty of analysts to predict when the open-world game might appear, with some saying that it will come out this fall, while others predicted an early 2013 launch.
Thanks to the recent earnings prediction from Take-Two, games industry analyst Michael Pachter has now posted a revised forecast about Grand Theft Auto V filled with all sorts of technical jargon.
According to the analyst, Take-Two will help Rockstar release Grand Theft Auto V before the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2013, largely because it expects its revenue to increase before then.
“Fiscal Year: 2013 guidance implies the release of Grand Theft Auto V in FY:13. Management expects revenue to more than double year-over-year in FY:13. We cannot construct a scenario in which Take-Two could generate the revenue needed to achieve FY:13 guidance without GTA V,” he said, via Kotaku.
Basically, Pachter believes Take-Two’s yearly revenue can’t reach its estimates by relying only on games like BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2, or NBA 2K13, so a release of Grand Theft Auto V before the end of March is a certainty.
The analyst then predicted the sales of the game and how they’ll help Take-Two reach its revenue estimates.
“We expect GTA V to sell at least 18 million units, representing a 20% attach rate to the estimated 2011 year-end installed base of PS3 and Xbox 360 in the U.S. and Europe. At this level, we estimate that Grand Theft Auto will generate at least $2.65/share in incremental EPS, making Take-Two's full-year forecast attainable,” the analyst added.
“Should the game sell 24 million units (in line with its historical attach rate), we expect contribution of more than $3.65 per share in incremental EPS. Importantly, the company has a history of providing conservative guidance, and without a GTA game, we would not expect management to be so bold as to provide FY:13 earnings guidance of $1.75 – 2.00.”
Pachter also believes Rockstar doesn’t want to delay GTA V, as next-generation consoles will arrive sooner rather than later, so it’s important to release the game as soon as possible.
“Also, we believe that the game's developers are unlikely to risk delay very far into CY 2013 and battle declining current-generation software sales in the face of the potential introduction of next-generation consoles that year or the next,” the analyst concluded.
As of yet, both Take-Two and Rockstar do not want to pin a release date on GTA V.