Grand Theft Auto VI publisher's stock tumbles after first trailer reveals the video game won't come out until 2025
Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive/Business Wire
- Take-Two Interactive shares dropped 6% ahead of Tuesday's opening bell.
- The stock tumbled despite the long-awaited release of the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI.
- The video game is set to come out in 2025, meaning it'll have little to no impact on Take-Two's earnings next year.
Take-Two Interactive's stock price tumbled in premarket trading Tuesday after the first trailer for "Grand Theft Auto VI" revealed that the hotly-anticipated title won't be released until 2025.
Shares in the video-game publisher were down 6% at 6 a.m. Eastern Time, which threatened to wipe out around $1.6 billion worth of market capitalization at the opening bell.
The losses came after Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games published a trailer for GTA VI on YouTube late Monday. The company had originally planned to put the clip out early Tuesday but brought forward its release after a leak on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The final seconds of Rockstar's video reveal that the game is "coming 2025", in what's been perceived as a blow to both fans and Take-Two shareholders.
Previous title "Grand Theft Auto V" is one of the highest-selling video games of all time, having shipped around 190 million copies worldwide and netted Take-Two roughly $8 billion worth of revenue. The 2025 release date means GTA VI will have little-to-no impact on the publisher's earnings next year.
Deutsche Bank analysts maintained a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note published Tuesday, but noted that the "first official peek into the game's launch window: 'coming 2025'" was one of the key details revealed in the trailer.
Rockstar's 90-second video also confirmed that the game will take place in Vice City, the Grand Theft Auto universe's equivalent of Miami, and feature both a male and a female protagonist, as previously reported by Bloomberg News' Jason Schreier.
Before Tuesday's losses, Take-Two shares were up 51% year-to-date, benefiting from a generally-favorable environment for tech stocks as well as continued speculation about when GTA VI will be released.