Following rumours about a partnership between 2K Sports and FIFA, Take-Two Interactive has put some doubt on it ever happening.
EA has successfully transitioned into making football games without the FIFA licence, with EA Sports FC 24 still dominating in sales despite losing the official branding.
The reason behind the fallout is the amount of money FIFA were asking for to use the licence (roughly $1 billion), but the football association has said it’s seeking a partnership with other studios to make an official FIFA football sim.
Since then, there’s been multiple rumours of a partnership with Take-Two Interactive, which has a history of sports games like NBA 2K. While it seemed like the obvious choice, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has spoken about the challenges of competing with EA in the console football space.
When asked directly about the rumours of Take-Two acquiring the FIFA licence, in the company’s earnings call for the Q1 2024/25 fiscal year, Zelnick said: ‘Look, we’re in the soccer business. We have the number one mobile soccer manager title in Top Eleven and we’re really happy that we do.
‘We’re also mindful that it’s incredibly difficult to build a great sim experience for console, it takes a long time, and if you do it right your users are very loyal and very embedded.’
In regards to FIFA specifically, he added: ‘I would just note with regards to the FIFA licence, it does not bring along with it rights; it doesn’t come with players, teams, or leagues. So it’s not as simple, for example, as negotiating with the NFL, or the NBA, or MLB, where at most you have to negotiate with a league and a player’s association.
‘So for anyone who would want to compete in the straight ahead sim environment for soccer… you wouldn’t just have to address one particular brand licence, there’s a whole lot more than that.’
While he doesn’t rule out the possibility of working with FIFA, Zelnick goes onto highlight Take-Two’s sporting titles across basketball, golf, and tennis, before concluding: ‘I’m sure we will make more announcements in due course.’
Based on his comments, it sounds like any potential collaboration with FIFA might be further away than anticipated – if it is happening at all.
Elsewhere in Take-Two’s financial report, the company also confirmed Civilisation 7 is lined up to release in Q4 of the 2025 fiscal year. This means, if it isn’t delayed, it will be released sometime between January and March next year.
A deep dive into Civilisation 7 is set to take place at Gamescom’s Future Games Show on August 21, so it’s possible we’ll hear more about a release date then.
On the financial front, Take-Two earned $1.22 billion in net bookings (sales, basically) in the first quarter of the fiscal year, from April 1 to June 30, 2024. This is described as being ‘in line’ with expectations, while net revenue is up by 4% year-over-year to $1.34 billion.
While net losses rose during the quarter, mostly due to the decline of products related to Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga, the company has increased its bookings guidance for the overall fiscal year from $5.55 to $5.65 billion.
Take-Two is also expecting growth over the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years, with the company set to release 24 games over that period.
This optimism is in large part due to the inevitable impact of GTA 6, which is still expected to launch in autumn 2025. However, Take-Two’s acquisition of Gearbox isn’t reflected in these quarterly results, as the deal closed in June – so we’re yet to see if that will have a positive impact on the financials.
While Take-Two expects it’ll be ‘a very lucrative deal’, the short-term isn’t looking positive, thanks to the Borderlands movie. It’s expected to be massive box office flop, with the film looking to earn between $12 and $16 million in its first weekend in the US, from a production budget of roughly $115 million.
The deal will likely be more lucrative when the next Borderlands game comes around, which might be soon according to recent comments from Gearbox Software co-founder Randy Pitchford.
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