Please challenge my long-term investment thesis on Take-Two (TTWO)

Strip GTA 6 out of this and your bull case is basically 'they release the same basketball game every October.' Which, to be fair, is a hell of a moat. Half the thesis is one unreleased game and the other half is an annual sports sim nobody can dethrone, and honestly that combo is fine, just call it what it is.

Except, TakeTwo owns 2k, which publishes beloved franchises like Civilization and Xcom. Plus microtransaction mobile studios like Zynga.

As a gamer and an investor it's honestly risky af to assume a stock is going to boom over a game launch. How many complete hot piles of shit disaster games have you seen the gaming community fall for because of hype machines?

Thats nice and all but semis will run up more than consumer stocks

This! People need to understand, that companies need to perform better then expected by the market (so the majority of people one could say), to rise in value.

So for OPs case: GTA has to become the biggest entertainment launch everyone is expecting and even has to go beyond that. And the hype hast to last until the PC release is coming. And so on.

Upside is basically always, that something happens that’s more positive then expected. So OP do you really think that most people believe that GTA6 will flop or just be like an average game and you are the only one expecting it to pop.

I've owned every game in the series and I've never been less excited for a launch.

Wait gta5 needs a PS5 pro to run right?

Yep all these points were priced in like a decade ago lol. Look at the stock price. Up 34% over 5 years. 5 years of a crazy bull run...

My question is what part of everything you listed isn't already priced in? These are all super obvious points.

In my opinion TTWO is probably over priced. The launch could very well be "sell the news" event. GTA6 being the biggest launch in history is already priced in. So what if it's a flop? What if GTA online isn't a cash cow that lasts a decade?

The gaming landscape has changed a lot in the last decade. Is a new GTA that's essentially the same gameplay, just bigger and with better graphics, really going to grab people like previous titles did? I've seen nothing that tells me GTA6 is going to be groundbreaking or game changing. It looks like it's just GTA, but bigger, with next Gen graphics. Maybe that's enough, idk.

I'll tell you as someone who has owned every GTA game ever made, I've never been less excited for a launch. I'll (probably) buy it, but I don't see myself spending a penny on GTA online. Is the younger generation going to pick up the slack from people like me who are kind of bored with the genre? Again idk, but I don't think it's a no brainer slam dunk.

I think it being huge is so priced in that there's a rather small chance it's even bigger than everyone expects. But a pretty decent chance it fails to live up to expectations.

That’s too long of a horizon, I’d rather have compounding gains now. I sold all mine last week.

GTA six could easily flop with overly high expectations after such a long development process, and it will need to recoup a ton of money they have spent on making it.  The stock might be somewhat inflated currently on GTA6 speculators such as yourself, so maybe not a great current value.

Chip shortages and rising electronic prices will likely put a huge damper on new console/pc purchases required to play GTA6.  GTA6 will kill the revenue steam of the existing GTA online stuff.  If the new game doesn't do well it might be crushing for the company.  There will likely be some layoffs or other reorganization after finally releasing this huge project which may affect stock prices.

Consumers are generally having a hard time with a tough economy right now, high prices and inflation and gas etc.  So even a great product might do less sales then expected due to external factors, or whole sectors of less essentials like entertainment may struggle.

You say you have a ten year idea but it's nearly all focused on a single game launch in the very near future.  At the very least there is significant short term volatility that could disrupt a long term plan.

Just some random ideas to think about.

Your thesis seems to be on GTA6 and future versions of it. Why do you think GTA6 will be on future console versions? Why do you think we will have future consoles vs something else entirely?

For your last question on a 10yr horizon, what are you comparing it to? TTWO vs EA? Yea, I think I'd prefer TTWO. But TTWO vs AMZN or something? Nah...