Greetings, and welcome to Take 2 Interactive Software's Q3 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr.
Hank Dimon, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Good afternoon. Welcome and thank you for joining Take 2's conference call to discuss its results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 ended December 31, 2019. Today's call will be led by Strauss Zelnick, Take 2's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Karl Sladoff, our President and Lainie Goldstein, our Chief Financial Officer. We will be available to answer your questions during the Q and A session following our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this call that are not historical facts are considered forward looking statements under federal securities laws.
These forward looking statements are based on the beliefs of our management, as well as assumptions made by actual operating results may vary significantly from these forward looking statements based on a variety of factors. These important factors are described in our annual report on Form 10 K and quarterly report on Form 10 Q, including the risks summarized in the section entitled Risk factors. I'd also like to note that unless otherwise stated, all numbers we will be discussing today are GAAP and all comparisons are year over year. Additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release including the items that our management uses internally to adjust our GAAP financial results in order to evaluate our operating performance. In addition, we have posted to our website a slide deck that visually presents our results and financial outlook.
Our press release and filings with the SEC may be obtained from our website at www.take2games.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Strauss.
Thanks, Hank. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. Throughout the 2019 holiday season, we experienced robust demand for our offerings that drove 3rd quarter operating results solidly within our increased outlook. Our net bookings were substantially higher than what we included for the third quarter when we gave our original fiscal 2020 outlook last May, as well as when we increased our outlook last August. Highlights are the performance of Grand Theft Auto Online And Grand Theft Auto Five, NDA 2K20, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, the Outer Worlds And Borderlands 3, reflecting our ability to deliver some of the most captivating experiences in the entertainment industry.
Grand Theft Auto Online once again exceeded our expectations. Delivering its consumer spending on Grand Theft Auto Online grew 54%, driven by Rockstar Games continued release of engaging new content. Grant Theft Auto Online had its biggest series of back to back updates ever in terms of player numbers, with records in audience size in December, and the third quarter following the release of the Diamond casino and Resort update in July and the Diamond casino heist in December. We're now on track to deliver Sales of Grand Theft Auto V also exceeded our expectations, and the title is now sold in more than 120,000,000 units. According to the NPD Group brand, Theft Auto5 was the best selling game of the decade in the U.
S. Based on both unit and dollar sales. Red Dead Online continues to gain momentum, both in terms of engagement and recurrent consumer spending. Net bookings from Red Dead Online outperformed our expectations during the third quarter almost tripling both year over year and sequentially, excluding digital content bundled with Red Dead Redemption 2 premium additions. Red Dead Long Online hit a new peak and player numbers in December following the release of the latest update, Moon Shiners, and then exceeded those numbers and set a new record in January.
We remain as excited as ever about the long term opportunity for Red Dead Online to be a November, Red Dead Redemption 2 launched for the PC and Google stadium to date has sold in over 29,000,000 units. According to the NPD Group, Red Dead Redemption 2 was the top title of the last 4 years based on U. S. Dollar sales. It bears noting that the collective lifetime selling of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 is now more than 150,000,000 units worldwide with over 250,000,000 lifetime game accounts created across both titles.
Rockstar Games' total online audience is also its biggest for Xbox 1, PlayStation 4 and PC, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the Outer Worlds has significantly exceeded our expectations and has sold in more than 2,000,000 5 awards, including Game of the Year from the New York video game critic circle and Struttoid and best RPG of the year from IGN, Shaq News, GameRakes and others. The title is also a finalist for the Dice Awards outstanding achievement in Storey and the RPG of the Year. We're confident that the Outer Worlds will continue to expand its audience including through its release on the Nintendo Switch, which is now planned for fiscal 2021. Unit sales of NBA 2k20, the latest installment in our industry leading basketball series, have outperformed our expectations the titles have sold in over 8,000,000 units to date, up slightly over NBA 2k19 in the same period. In November, the title was released for Google Sadia.
In addition, engagement with NBA 2k20 is reaching all time highs with average daily users growing and my team users up more than 35%. In addition, NBA 2k20 has generated more than 276,000,000 views on YouTube and over 8000000 hours of content watched on Twitch across hundreds channels. While this increased engagement led to a defensive soccer game, due to some specific design changes, which we plan to address in future versions of NBA 2K. Because of this, we no longer expect lifetime net bookings for NBA 2k20 to be a record for the series. However, we continue to 2020.
Taking creative risk is part of Take 2's DNA as we constantly strive to improve the gameplay experience for audiences. More often than not, this results in enhancing our growth, which is reflected in the substantial, long term outperformance, of NBA 2K. Turning to Borderlands 3, the latest installment in our genre defining shooter litter series continues to expand its audience since its record breaking launch in September with more than 50% user growth in comparison to Borderlands 2, at the same time, in its lifecycle. 2K and Devox are supporting the game with free content as well as 4 downloadable campaign expansions, which are included with the Borderlands 3 Super deluxe edition, and the season pass or can be purchased separately upon release. The first of these expansions, Moxie's heist and the Hansen Jackal was released during the third quarter in positively received by critics and consumers alike, helping to drive a season pass attach rate for Borderlands 3 Today Ford Reels sold in nearly 8,000,000 units, and we expect lifetime unit sales to be a record for the series.
Earlier in the quarter, 2K launched WWE 2K20 for PlayStation 4, Xbox 1 and PC, and WWE 2K20 feature several new gameplay modes that celebrate the WWE's Thriving Women's division, as well as an array of fan favorite superstars, legends and match types. While we're disappointed that WWE 2k20 does not meet our expectations, both in terms of sales and quality, 2K is actively working with visual concepts to ensure that these issues are addressed in the future, and they'll have more to share on their plans soon. The WWE brand continues to expand worldwide and there remains a substantial long term opportunity to grow our WWE 2K series by improving the quality of the game. I'll now take 2's core tenets is our aim to be the most creative and the most innovative company in the entertainment industry, Today, in addition to delivering the highest quality stand alone entertainment experiences, we measure our success by our ability to captivate and engage audiences well beyond the title's initial release. To that end, during the third quarter, recurrent consumer spending grew 6% and accounted for 41% of our total net bookings.
In addition to virtual currency for NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto Online And Red Dead Online, recurrent consumer spending was enhanced by a variety of other offerings, In the free to play category, Social Point continues to be a meaningful contributor to our results towards mobile titles Dragon City, Monster Legends World Chef Tasty Town and Wordlife. During the quarter, Social Point added new content, special events and updates to these games. Our Barcelona based studio continues to invest in its broad and innovative pipeline of new games planned for launch in the coming years. 2K launch season 6 of WWE SuperCard featuring all new card tiers and upgraded features, The title has now been downloaded more than 20,000,000 times and remains 2K's highest Sports game in China with more than 48,000,000 registered users. Add on content grew 135% led by offerings for Borderlands 3, Sid Meier's Civilization VI and WWE 2K20.
Finally, sales of Borderlands 3 premium additions, which include additional content that is the and outlook for the fourth quarter, we're increasing the low end of our fiscal 2020 operating outlook, while maintaining the high end. Fiscal 2020 shaping up to be another terrific year for Take 2. Looking ahead, our company has the strongest development pipeline in its history and we're committed to supporting our titles with offerings designed to drive ongoing engagement. In addition, we're actively investing in emerging markets, platforms and business models, that have significant potential to enhance Thanks to generate returns for our shareholders over the long term. I'll now turn the call over to Carl.
Thanks, Strauss. I'll begin by discussing our upcoming releases. Throughout the coming months, 2K and gearbox software will continue to support Borderlands 3 with a robust post launch content strategy, including all new in game mini events and 3 additional downloadable campaign expansions. Later this month, at PAX East And Boston, Two cable and unveil details about their future content offerings, Borderlands 3's upcoming release on Steam and more. In addition, Rockstar Games will continue to provide an array of content and gameplay experiences for the vast open worlds of Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online.
Which continued to set engagement records for the label. In fiscal 2021, private division will expand our offerings for the Nintendo switch with the release of the Outer Worlds. As Strauss noted earlier, the title was incredibly well received by critics and consumers alike on its original launch platforms, we are confident that we'll continue to thrill audiences as they immerse themselves in this player choice driven RPG on the switch. One of our organization's key priorities is building scale by growing the size of our development pipeline, investing in our world class creative resources and partnering with Independent Studios And Industry, enables Take to enhance our industry lead portfolio of intellectual property, which is a foundation of our strategy to grow our business and expand profitability. In December, 2K announced the formation of cloud chamber, which will be working on the next iteration of the globally acclaimed BioShock franchise for the next several years.
Cloud Chamber is a collective of storytellers eager to push the limits of interactive entertainment by making unique, captivating and thoughtful experiences set in a rich immersive world. The team will be based in two locations, 2 Ks headquarters in Nevada, California, as well as in Montreal, Quebec. Which marks the first ever 2 K studio in Canada. Private division is another example of our growing investment in new intellectual property. This year, we benefited from the exceptional performance of the Outer Worlds.
Our new label is taking a strategic approach to working with some of the industry's best creative talent and is quickly amassing an impressive pipeline for the future. During fiscal year 2021, Private Division plans to release Kerbal Space Program 2 and disintegration, which just completed a successful technical beta. Private division will have more announcements about their growing portfolio over time. Mobile, which continues to be the highest growing Palliance grossing and fastest growing segment in the interactive entertainment is an important opportunity for Take 2. Social currently has 5 games active in the market, including Dragon City, Monster's Lesins, World Sheff, Takeetown, and Wordlife.
And they have more than 10 new games in the various stages of development. In addition, we continue to pursue new mobile offerings and extensions of our existing franchises, such as WWE SuperCard and NBA 2K Mobile. The global proliferation smart mobile devices and high speed data networks represents an exciting entry point into emerging markets, particularly in China, Latin America, Africa and India. Taytu's development pipeline over the next 5 years is the largest and most diverse our company's history. Including releases from our biggest franchises, exciting new IT, free to play offerings and a diverse mix of casual, mid core and core gaming experiences.
We will have much more to share on this exciting slate of titles in the months to come. In addition to our focus on growing existing and building new franchises, we have a number of emerging opportunities that have the potential to contribute to our growth and margin expansion. Streaming may become a compelling distribution platform for our industry that could expand our market and increase margins. Whether frontline or catalog offerings, the highest quality content drives consumer adoption and Take 2's portfolio is a must have for any new platform. During the holiday season, we released Red Dead Redemption 2, NBA 2K20, and Borderlands 3 for purchase on Google Stadium.
Esports remains an exciting new segment for our industry and company. The NBA 2K League, our first foray into competitive gaming and partnership with the NBA, is gearing up for its 3rd season that will begin at the end of this month. The league continues to expand with new teams joining this year, bringing an account to 23, including the 1st international and non NBA team, the Gen G Tigers of Shanghai. The launch of the Gen G Tigers is the 1st step in the long term effort to build a stronger global presence for the league. In January, the NBA 2K League hosted its global invitation match a series of exhibition matches featuring APAC Invitational players and a 2019 NBA 2K lead final MVP playing against top representatives from NBA 2k Online 2.
The games were live streamed in China on Tencent's Penguin Esports Genji's streaming partner, DUU, and HUYA, as well as on the NBA 2K leads, Twitch and YouTube channels. We are very excited about the continued progress and growth of the league, which has a long term potential to enhance engagement and to be a driver of profits for our company. In closing, as we begin a new decade, we enter an incredibly exciting period for our industry and company, which should bring technological advancement as well as compelling new platforms and business models. We remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver the highest quality entertainment experiences, to captivate and engage our audiences throughout the world and to generate growth and margin expansion. I'll now turn the call over Lane.
Thanks, Carl. Good afternoon, everyone. Today, we'll discuss our 3rd quarter results and then review our financial outlook for quarter fiscal year 2020. Please note that additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release. As Strauss mentioned, we in robust demand for our offerings throughout the 2019 holiday season that enabled us to deliver 3rd quarter operating results, flawlessly within our increased outlook.
Total net bookings were $888,000,000 as compared to our outlook of $860,000,000 to $910,000,000. Current consumer spending grew 6% and accounted for 41% of total net bookings as compared to our outlook of 5% growth. Digitally delivered net bookings decreased slightly by 2% and accounted for 78% of the total as compared to our outlook of 5% growth. The decrease is due to very strong physical sales of our titles over the holidays. During the third quarter, 44% of current generation console games were delivered digitally, up from 31% last year.
To turn into some details from our 3rd quarter income statement, GAAP net revenue grew to $930,000,000 and cost of goods sold decreased to $437,000,000. Operating expenses increased by 6 percent to $316,000,000 due primarily to higher personnel and R and D costs offset by lower marketing expenses. And GAAP net income was $164,000,000 or $1.43 per share as compared to $180,000,000 or $1.57 per share in the third quarter of fiscal 2019. Adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow for the 9 months ended December 31, 2019, was $548,000,000, and we ended the period with approximately $2,000,000,000 in cash and short term investments. Now I will review the highlights of our fiscal 2020 financial outlook, starting with the fourth quarter.
We project net bookings to range from $5.40 to 5 $90,000,000, up from $488,000,000 in fourth quarter last year. The largest contributors to net bookings are expect be Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto Five and the A 2K20, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, Sid Meier's civilization VI and Borderlands 3. We project recurrent consumer spending to grow by approximately 10% dollars, driven primarily by growth in Grand Theft Auto Online And Red Dead Online. We expect digitally delivered net bookings increased by over 20% Our forecast assumes that 66% of our current generation console games will be delivered digitally, up from 57% in the same period last year. We expect GAAP net revenue to range from $635,000,000 to $685,000,000, cost of goods sold to range from $274,000,000 to $286,000,000.
Operating expenses to range from $247,000,000 to $257,000,000. At the midpoint, this represents a 13% increase over last year. Driven primarily by higher personnel costs and marketing expenses. And GAAP net income is expected to range from $105,000,000 to $128,000,000, or $0.92 to $1.12 per share. For management reporting purposes, we expect our tax rate to be 17% throughout fiscal 2020.
Turning to our outlook for the full fiscal year. We are raising the low end of our net bookings outlook by $50,000,000 and maintaining the high end. We now expect net bookings to range from $2,800,000,000 to 2 $850,000,000. The increase is driven by higher expectations Grant Theft Auto Online, including record recurrent consumer spending on the title, Grand Theft Auto 5 and the Outer Worlds, partially offset by reduced expectation for Borderlands 3 and recurrent consumer spending on NBA 2K. The reduced expectations for Borderlands 3 are still consistent with our original high expectations for the title prior to K20 and NBA CK19, Grand Theft Auto Online And Grand Theft Auto 5, Borderlands 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Med Dead Online, the Outer Worlds and Sid Meier Civilization VI.
We expect the net bookings breakdown from our labels to be roughly 55% 2K 35% Rockstar Games and 10% private division and social points. And we forecast our geographic net bookings to be about 60% United States 40% international. We are maintaining our forecast for recurrent consumer spending to increase by approximately 25 We now project digitally delivered net bookings to grow by approximately 25% versus our prior expectation of nearly 30% growth, due to a higher mix of physical sales. Note that this is still above our forecast given in August of a high teens growth. Our outlook assumes that 55% of current generation console games will be delivered digitally, up from 38% last year.
We are increasing our outlook for adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow to over $500,000,000 versus our prior expectation of over 4 $50,000,000. We now plan to deploy approximately $60,000,000 for capital expenditures versus a prior expectation of $75,000,000. We expect GAAP net revenue to range from $2,960,000,000 to $3,010,000,000 and cost of goods sold to range from 1.42 to one $430,000,000. Total operating expenses are expected to range from $1,130,000,000 to $1,400,000,000. At the midpoint, this represents a 20 costs.
And we expect GAAP net income to range from $387,000,000 to $409,000,000 or $3.38 $3.58 per share. In closing, our focus on producing the highest quality entertainment delivered strong third quarter results and reaffirm that Take 2 remains on pace to deliver another terrific year. Looking ahead with our world class creative teams, firm commitment to operational excellence, and solid financial foundation. Our company is exceptionally well positioned to deliver value to our customers and returns to our shareholders. Thank you.
I will now turn the call back to Jeff.
Thanks, Lainie and Carl. On behalf of our entire management team, I'd like to thank our colleagues for their hard work and commitments excellence. To our shareholders, I want to express our appreciation for your continued support.
You. Questions. Our first question comes from the line of Todd Juenger with Sanford and Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I hope you understand that I feel I have to ask this question. I'm sure you were expecting it. So you had a significant executive departure at Rockstar.
Caro or Strauss, anything you can tell us about succession planning on operations in the pipeline, culture, future plans and competition, whatever you can say on that matter. I'm sure we'd appreciate. Thank you.
Todd, thanks for your question. This is Strauss. So Danhauser had been on an extended leave since some early spring 2019 The company has been led since its founding by Sam Hauser, who's president of the company. And an extraordinary team effort, and Sam's a great player coach. The results at Rockstar Games continue to be extraordinary with the the launch of the new content for both Grand Theft Auto Online and for Red Dead Online.
And, it's amazingly gratifying to see Grand Theft Auto V selling in 120,000,000 units and Red Dead Redemption 2 would be up to 29,000,000 units with the launch of PC Stadia. As well as the really extraordinary results of Grand Theft Auto Online, which we now expect to have another record year more than 6 years after its initial launch. And of course, Red Dead Online itself, was up something like 3x year over year. And sequentially, in the last quarter. So the label has really never been stronger.
We're incredibly optimistic and excited At the same time, we're grateful to Dan for his contributions and we wish him well.
Thank you. If you don't mind, if I could ask just a follow-up then more on the business side. So Strauss, I think I've heard you say multiple times publicly that take 2 aspires to launch a AAA game every year, at least 1 every year. We assume should we assume that that includes calendar year 2020? I'm not asking for any formal announcements of anything, but with this year, should we expect a AAA release this year as well?
And anything you could say about, more about that would be appreciated.
So as we always do, you're going to hear our initial outlook for fiscal 2021 in May. And our labels, of course, always make our product releases We have set our strategy, as you correctly pointed out, is to have a strong frontline release schedule, both iterations from beloved franchises. We have 11 franchises that sold in at least 5,000,000 units within, within one release, as well as new intellectual property. And we are working on the most robust pipeline in our history. So we're amazingly excited about it.
That said, we haven't always been able to achieve our goal of having a strong frontline release schedule. In every year or even in the recent past. What has been great though is we've now built a company that has these very strong underpinnings of catalog titles and ongoing titles that live on in the hearts and minds of our consumers generating engagement and generating net bookings and profits. So right now, we have titles like Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Online, All the Social Point titles and there are 5 that are successfully in market NDA 2K online in China, WWE SuperCard, which has been downloaded more than 20,000,000 times. And the list goes on, And in this past quarter, for example, catalog sales represented about 40% of our net bookings.
So we now have a company that season in and season out, we feel confident. Can with those frontline new releases. Given that we're a company that depends on our creative teams to make as close to perfect products as possible, we have to be willing to live with the vagaries of product deliveries. And that means sometimes we will have thin frontline years. But even in those frontline years, we've been able to deliver really great financial results.
Our next question comes from the line of Doug Creutz with Cowen And Company.
If I recall correctly, 2 years ago, you guys had a bit of a hiccup with NBA 2k recurrent consumer spending. Obviously, last year was incredibly strong. It's you're running into a little bit of an air pocket again this year. Could you talk about what's going on? Is that just sort of growing pains as you continue to sort of try to find new frontiers for the franchise to get consumers to spend money?
Is it something with the process? Is it something with sort of the engagement loops? Any that would be helpful.
Yes. 1st of all, I want to make sure that we distinguish between a problem and a high class them. So the high class problem is that we had said in our revised outlook that we thought NBA 220 would set another record for net bookings. And then now we're realizing that to say we don't expect it to set another record despite its very strong unit sales and the great engagement. And that's because one of the parts of the, the online version, has recurrent consumer spending coming in somewhat lower than we had expected.
And that's related to a design fee one that we can address going forward. But it's not really a hiccup because our goal is 1st and foremost to captivate and engage consumers. And our engagement is up and our unit sales are up and the title quality is just phenomenal. It's also true that as a company that doesn't lead with monetization, we lead with entertainment and engagement, Now and then, our monetization may not be exactly what we think it'll be. So let me take responsibility for the decision to focus 1st and foremost on the entertainment experience in the consumer and only secondarily on what the monetization is.
And that means now and then, we may fall short of setting a record, but Bailing to set a record isn't exactly a problem. When you have a title that's as massively successful as NBA 2k20 is, it's an incredibly profitable title for the firm. Oh, and incidentally recurrent consumer spending for the franchise will actually be up in the fiscal year in solid double digits. So the engagement is strong. The spending is strong.
And at the same time, there were some design changes that didn't optimize specific recurrent consumer spending in certain modes and we are confident we'll be able to address those.
Our next question comes from the line of Drew Crump with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
What has led to the reduced view on Borderlands 3? Can you comment on how the game has performed on PC to date And without getting into specific numbers, what are your expectations for the game once it's available on Steam?
Well, Borderlands is actually performing better than our original outlook. It's sold in nearly 8,000,000 units We've launched 1 of the downloadable content packs. We have 3 more expected at the moment. And in fact, the season pass attach rate is a record for the series and a record 2K at this point in the title's life cycle. And we expect that the Borderlands 3 will set a record in terms of net bookings for the franchise.
So our expectations remain solid and very strong. It's a great big hit for us.
Right. And when we went into the Christmas season, we had really seen real excitement for the title and we lifted our expectations a little bit higher than we had it at the very beginning of the year, which was very high to begin with. So we didn't meet those that higher expectations, but we did meet our original very high expectations for the title. So that's why we're bringing it down slightly, but very high from the beginning of the year.
This is again, this is a massive hit by any standard. But we've always said when we guide and when we revise, we aim to be accurate. And sometimes the vagaries of the entertainment business will be that we don't exactly get it right.
Okay, fair enough. And just the follow-up, I think in the initial press release, you indicated that the sell through on TC was quite strong. Again, what are your expectations for the game once it launches on Steam?
We continue to have very high expectations. As I said, we fully expect that Borderlands 3 will set a record for the franchise.
Got it. Okay. Thanks guys.
Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Orkowitz with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you for letting me ask a couple of questions here. The first one, just how should we think about the next kind of next generation console, does it add more uncertainty or does it actually alleviate uncertainty as we think about the transition to the new console in terms of live service games, whether it's MBA or GT Online or what have you?
Hi, it's Carl. We're really excited about the next generation console. I think the best part about it is that I think everyone now knows that we are going a next generation console and there's a lot of anticipation for it. I'll leave the details about what the expectations are to our partners, Microsoft Soni. But I think so far the buzz about what the consoles are going to be able to do from a technological perspective is very exciting for us.
And so in that regard, I think it eliminates uncertainty because we know we're going through next console cycle and that we believe it'll be very robust and a great thing for the industry. And again, anytime that you have these kind of advancements in tech, it creates opportunities for our great, incredible creative teams to push the limits of those of that technology and create the experiences that we know consumers are going to want to engage with for very long periods of time even after the initial sale. So to the extent that we've got the ability to do that and all indications is that we will, and we expect will lead to growth for our company. It's a very positive thing.
Even for current ongoing live service games that you have now that were built for older OverGen?
Yes, I mean, look, how, what exactly the transition is going to be from concept from each game from concept from between the console cycles, will vary, but there's no reason to believe that the success that we're experiencing with those services would be any less would be any would be any less than the new generation than it is in the old generation.
Got it. Thank you. And then just Just another high level question. I think Outer Worlds was on Microsoft, Xbox Game Pass. Do you think that helped or hurt the the success of that franchise?
It's hard to say. I think what we've said all along is that generally speaking, we want to be where the consumer is. Generally speaking, we think subscription offerings to the extent they exist are probably better suited to catalog, but we're willing to take experimental chances when it makes sense for a particular title. And when the deal underlying that option also makes sense for us, And we're pleased that we have a good partnership with Microsoft, and we're mostly pleased that the title is such a big hit. It's sold in more than 2,000,000 units and it's 175 game awards.
So it's early days for all of these platforms. It's obviously early days for many technologies, including streaming technology our goal is to be where the consumer is. We're acumenical and we're open minded.
Got it. Thank you guys so much.
Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Thornton with SunTrust. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question guys. Maybe 2 quick housekeeping or triangulation questions and then I'll come back to an earlier question. GTA versus NBA 2K in the back half of the year, I mean, could GTA online actually be bigger than the NBA was in December? Could it be in the fourth quarter?
Similarly, Red Dead, I think the initial this year was recurrent, would be down year on year when you include some of the premium SKUs from last year's launch. Is that still the case given the success that the sales having could recur and actually be up year on year? And then just going back, Strauss to your comments around the departure. I just wanted to paraphrase and make sure that we had the message right. It sounds like this was a fairly isolated departure.
No other plans for departure, the culture is still kind of as it has been, the pipeline is, has it has been the progress is kind of where it has been, I just want to make sure that, that we have that messaging right because obviously a lot of investors are asking that question. Any color there would be helpful.
Thanks
guys. So in the
first one, we have said that the NDA 2K is the highest contributor spending for for, for all titles. So we have said that. What is your second question? Sorry, I missed that one.
Line, if that could actually be up year on year, even including the premium SKU kind of contribution last year?
No, it was including the special additions. It's not up. It's only without including the special edition.
In terms of your question about Rockstar, and I think your question, I think your question is for following the category of the label. So terms of team stability, Samhauser's President of Rockstar Games, he founded Rockstar Games. He's a great player coach. And he leads a team of thousands of people every day who are trying to make the most extraordinary entertainment experiences known to man. And that's where those are their goals.
And more often than not, they achieve or even exceed those goals, which is just amazing. It doesn't I don't typically speak for other people, but I confidently can speak and say that Sam is highly committed to the organization. And Sam and I work very closely together. And it's an enormous to be able to be in business with Sam and the entire team at Rockstar. Culturally, I've only seen ongoing improvements at Rockstar, frankly.
I've only seen growth and engagement innovation. And, and I think one of the great things about all of our labels in our company as a whole is that we're incredibly self critical and we're, we aim to be utterly transparent, and we always try to do better. And, I think that true of everywhere that take 2 touches and Rockstar Games sets a standard for always trying to improve the quality of its operations quality of the way that they work and the quality of their culture. I frankly couldn't be more proud of how effectively that label is operating. I think this year has been bring content that set records in terms of engagement and player excitement, Owen, incidentally, revenue.
Profitability. So, things couldn't be better. And to be very specific, no, we certainly don't expect other departures. As an organization as a whole, we have an extraordinarily low rate of attrition vastly lower than the industry average, And I think that's because we offer a great place to work at all of our labels, and to take to corporate as well. And to the extent that we ever fall short, we always aim to do better.
Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Gee with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Yes, hey, good afternoon.
Thanks for you guys for taking the question. So Maybe first for Lainie, I guess with over 60% of the business now coming from, recurrent consumer spend, how has that impacted your ability to provide us guidance 1 quarter, 1 year out, especially as you consider NBA 2K and borderlands coming in a bit lower. Should we have greater confidence now than in the past, in your guidance or does this present other challenges for you? That's the first question. And then for Carl, you touched on cloud chamber.
Can we maybe get an update on the 2 K Silicon Valley Studio, maybe Hanger13, are those likely to also have content out in the next 1 to 2 years? Anything you could say there? Great.
In terms of forecasting with recurrent consumer spending, there are some things that I think are easier to predict, but it it does present other challenges as well, especially when you have titles that are out in the market for such a long time, and you would expect them to decline. And then 1 year, they decline, and then the year they grow and there's different content that comes out, it's still pretty difficult to predict that as well as different when we're making different, when we're trying different things in different games and you don't know how that's going to perform. That can also be another variable. So we're definitely getting better at it and we have a lot more information and analytics that we can use to be more predictive, but there are different things that change every year that can make it different from year to year. So I'd say we're getting better at it, but there are different things that, we have in recurrent consumer spending each year.
So I wouldn't say that is a slam dunk, but it's definitely something that we're getting better at.
And in regards to your question about, Hanger13 and also Michael Condrey Studio, I wish I could tell you more about what their working on because it's very exciting both the studios. We're incredibly excited to have the teams at Hanger13 led by Hayden and also Michael's yet to be named studio as well, working on new and exciting projects. As I said before, our pipeline is very diverse and it's very large. And we're going to share with you more about that in the coming months. And these two projects are obviously part of that.
So you can certainly expect that there will be games coming out of the studios. Wish I could tell you more about them, but stay tuned because they're very exciting. And we're thrilled to be in business with both of those folks and their entire teams. So stay tuned.
Okay. And then if
I could just follow-up on that, that last point. So, BioShock still several years out, Borderlands just came Should we assume that your characterization of a robust slate ahead also includes rockstar content, not just 2K studios?
Yeah, we're talking about the entire company. All of our labels, Rockstar Private Division, Social Point, and 2K.
Great. Thank you guys.
Our next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe a bigger picture one. You saw another player in the industry make a larger announcement with Google in the last couple of weeks. Curious how you're thinking about a couple of the large secular themes that are playing out in the industry with respect to either owning or outsourcing your own technology infrastructure, how you think about the content you're producing being broadcast broader over direct to consumer channels and how to think about either owning that or partnering and the same with respect to cloud computing as a distribution mechanism for gaming? How are you thinking about wrapping what you've been very good at over the years in terms of content creation and thinking about maybe amplifying that either through your own efforts or through partnerships and relationships?
Thanks so much.
So I appreciate the question. And the question points sort of points up our focus on expanding the company in this industry that has these extraordinary tailwinds. Through a focus on new technologies, new business models, new types of entertainment and new geographies or geographies where we're not currently represented And so it's sort of, for a multiple choice question, it would be all of the above. We're focusing on all of them. You specifically ask on the distribution side, how are we looking at that?
And the answer is, we are very engaged in looking at options that do include direct to consumer options. Our strategy.
Excuse me.
Our strategy has been to be where the consumer is. If I keep joking Carl's going to have to dig over. Strategy has been apologies to be where the consumer is. And to be ecumenical about various distribution opportunities and to work with all of the players in the space. And I expect we'll continue to do all of that.
Our next question comes from the line of Mario Loop with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. I have a couple
of questions. 1 on GTA and 1 on Red Dead. So GTA5 had partnerships with PlayStation now. Late last year and then Xbox game pass during January, which I suspect it added millions of players. So any color you can provide regarding these types of partnerships?
And specifically, how much of an uplift they provided to GTA online bookings? And secondly, on Red Dead, glad to hear that Red Dead Online tripled the year on year. So I mean, I know you mentioned before that online is in the world of its own. But how confident are you that, whether online engagement can maintain or grow for 6 years plus as well? Thanks.
In terms
of how specific arrangements with specific titles pan out, we typically don't go into that level of detail, except to say we enter into those arrangements with a view that they'll the titles, they'll benefit us and that they'll benefit our responsibilities. Mary can successfully put more great content. And so far, it does look like a great time into the midst of a few of that online, and we're excited about the
questions.
3 years and how many might be released in the next, you know, you know, for Red Dead Online.
Hey, Eric, it's Carl. I'll just regard in the pipeline. This question obviously comes up on every single call we have and every single meeting we have with investors. And we are like I said, we are going to share more about the pipeline with you over the coming months, give you some more color on exactly what constitutes that pipeline. So it'll give you a little bit more idea of between what we've got going on with new IP and existing franchises, free to play games, different business models, casual games, core games, midcore games, we're hoping to share a lot more information with you over the coming months regarding that.
And in terms of Red Dead, I don't think you can payer content to content. The last content drops on Red Dead have been fantastically successful. And the latest update, Moon Shiners did great and generated all of this excitement that we've seen reflected in the numbers I'm confident Rockstar Games will continue to deliver great content for Red Dead Online, but there's no real way to compare qualitatively, to or I suppose quantitatively to to Grand Theft Auto Online content. They're just they're different games and they have different types of content that's drummed. But the goal is to create content that consumers love and engage in and spend against.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from the line of Mike
I just have their frontline content available day and date on subscription products. Do you think that could eventually catalyze vertical consolidation to get that content in the future. And I'd also appreciate it hearing your thoughts on the prospect of AAA horizontal consolidation as well. Thank you.
I think we're, I'm proud of my crystal ball most of the time where I really had a very crystal ball is when I've been predicting consolidation in the industry. I think I predicted meaningful consolidation in the industry about 10 years ago, and we're still waiting. So it seems that in an industry, we have these extraordinary tailwinds and weak players get washed out and really get sold for scrap, essentially. And strong players only get stronger. It's hard to imagine why you'd see a lot of horizontal consolidation.
Horizontal consolidation tends to occur when industries are under pressure or companies are under pressure. Typically, certainly in the entertainment industry that's historically been the case. So I'm not sure what to expect. I think your question about vertical consolidation is interesting, even though, your 1st day business will explain to you the vertical validation doesn't create value. 1 could imagine a powerful distributor that's anxious to build build an audience could imagine that acquiring exclusive rights to key product would jumpstart that.
The track record of that going well in the linear entertainment business has been very poor. And it's been tried over and over again. But I suppose it could be tried in the interactive entertainment business, very hard for us very hard for us to say. What we do every day is, is get up and try to do the best job we can both from a creative point of view and a business point of view. And we try to be of service to our customers, our colleagues and our investors, and that's served us well.
And in terms of our own approach to M and A, We have a significant cash balance to shy of $2. We don't have any debt. And we have a lot of cash flow. In fact, we've revised upward or expectations about adjusted operating cash flow for the year to $500,000,000 up from $450,000,000. Our CapEx is down a little bit as well.
So we certainly are in a position to pursue, transactions. Our lens is, is it strategically powerful is it financially accretive. And that analysis led us to acquire Social Point several years ago, we're happy we did. And, to the extent that an opportunity match those criteria, we would hope to move forward as well.
Great. Thank you for your thoughts.
Our next question comes from the line of Raymond Stochel with Consumer Edge Research.
Thanks for taking my question. 1 on retaining talent and this isn't really meant to involve Danhauser, but you can certainly comment on that as well. It's more in thinking about how you're opening up these new studios and even your equity investment in proletariat. Can you talk about how the changing business models and the changing pipeline that you have as far as bringing new ideas to market is making you think differently about the way that you're incentivizing your employees? I know you think deeply about these matters.
Yes. What we're trying always to think differently about is creativity. We know there will be a net new thing. You haven't seen the final expression of what interactive entertainment or entertainment is, here in 2020. You're going to see big innovations hopefully from us, but certainly from the industry in the next 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 20 years.
And we're positioned so that we ought to be able to be at the front line of that and shame on us if we're not. So the creative expression of what we do must evolve, will evolve. But the culture that underlies that here remains unchanged because it works. And part of a culture is compensation, in a for profit enterprise, you can outline your culture verbally, but your compensation programs either will or will not, drive that culture. And our culture is one of sharing and our compensation programs are one of sharing.
We emotionally share success. We all take responsibility for failure and equally, our compensation programs, align incentives with our shareholders by making sure that essentially we have profit shares, essentially. If we miss our goals, then incentive comp for the team is disappointing or 0. If we exceed our goals, good. If we massively exceed our goals, it's very good, but it's self liquidating because it's driven by an increase in profits.
And at the label level, we essentially, although we call it different things, have profit sharing arrangements. So the better the labels do, the better the human beings do, the better the shareholders do. That's our goal. And it's all formulaic because we don't believe in discretionary comp programs, and we think they lead to ticking and other bad things. Our comp programs are almost entirely formulaic based on results versus plan and or actual operation the divisional
Our next question comes from the line of Alex Giama with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Carl, you mentioned free to play as an opportunity in your remarks. You guys have a lot of valuable IP in your portfolio. So just curious if anything in your catalog could work on a free to play basis? Or if you were to launch a free to play offering, would it more likely be based on new IP? Thanks.
Yes, I mean, I think the short answer is, I'm sure there are lots of things in our catalog that would work on a free to play basis. And that doesn't necessarily mean that we pursue that. It really has to be the right mix the creative goal, and what the development team is trying to achieve from a creative perspective, and then the business model etcetera. Free to play games, we tend to have the belief that you can't really invest at the same level on a free to play experience that you do in a standard ownership AAA type title. There are probably going to be examples in the future without the case, but that's our general philosophy.
So, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a old franchise that was AAA ownership type model couldn't work in a free to play context. And certainly, new IP, big opportunities to pursue new business models. And amongst those business models, are free to play. So the answer, it really could be both.
Got it. Thanks, Karl.
Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Thornton with SunTrust. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks for sneaking me back in. My question was actually taken, but I'll ask a different one. I think it was Carl, you mentioned talking about the pipeline in next couple of months here. I'm just curious, number 1, is that just talking about the fiscal 2021 slate or is that more of a multi year outlook that you guys are thinking about providing? And then just kind of what venue is that on the next call?
Or is there a certain venue or is this kind of ad hoc by studio? Just how should we think about this information coming to us. Any color there? Thanks guys.
Yes, I mean, our goal is obviously we have insight into many years into the future what the pipeline is. And one thing we know for sure is that it will change. And not everything in the pipeline will see the light of day. That's currently the pipeline. And there'll be things that are not in the pipeline that will come out.
But our goal is to share as much information as we can, to give you insight into what we see, which is a multi year pipeline, And when exactly we do that, you'll have to wait and save, but really it'll be in the coming months. And when that information comes, you'll know it.
Our final question comes from the line of Jeff Cohen with Stephens Inc.
Taking the question. Can you talk about engagement with the Rockstar Games launcher since it went live back in September? And then could you eventually see adding games from other take studios or even games and third party publishers?
Yes, they've had very strong with the Rockstar Game launcher. And we're excited to see that. In terms of how the company will pursue it broadly, That's part of the work that we're doing now. We obviously do have a central site where you can buy games. And, I would hope that our company would together effectively to pursue various direct to consumer offerings, but equally, our labels are highly independent.
So I think your expectations are probably that we're unlikely to have only one place of any sort to buy anything. We're likely to have multiple outlets. We're likely to have direct out it's, we're likely to be work with 3rd parties and we're likely to have multiple opportunities throughout the organization. But the underpinnings within the organization the technical underpinnings and the business underpinnings will be centralized. We will all work together cooperatively, so we don't duplicate efforts.
So you can see a consumer facing approach that's quite varied. And then we have a highly efficient approach internally where we have all people working together productively in service of the same goals.
Thanks, Strauss.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our question and answer session and I would like to turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We're very proud of the results driven by our creative teams and and driven by our business teams as well. We're grateful to our colleagues all around the world. We're very grateful to our shareholders for their support and grateful to all of you who attended and took the time to be thoughtful and ask questions.
This concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. You for your participation and have a wonderful day.