Publisher Take-Two has announced the results of its fourth quarter, showing sales up to $292.6 million on strong sales of BioShock, NBA 2K8 and Carnival Games, and losses halved to $7.1 million.

The fourth quarter sales were up from $266.6 in 2006. The company said that distribution revenue also rose year over year fueled by the titles above as well as a "robust demand for Wii products."

For its full fiscal year, sales were down from $1.04 billion to $981.8 million, while losses fell from $184.9 million in 2006 to $138.4 million. Take-Two says that its BioShock has this year sold in excess of 2 million copies, and that its surprise Wii hit Carnival Games has sold 500,000 copies, also noting that it plans to release a companion DS version.

Looking forward to 2008, the publisher says it expects sales of between $175-225 million for its first quarter and $1.1-1.4 billion for its full financial year. Its proposed Q1 lineup includes College Hoops 2K8, Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids, Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue, Deal or No Deal: Secret Vault Games and the Japanese release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

For the rest of fiscal 2008, Take-Two has slated Borderlands, Bully: Scholarship Edition, Carnival Games, Don King Presents: Prizefighter, Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids, Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue, Grand Theft Auto IV, Major League Baseball 2K8, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, NBA 2K9, NHL 2K9, Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution and Top Spin 3.

Said chairman Strauss Zelnick, “Fiscal 2007 was a year of progress for Take-Two, capped by better-than-expected bottom line financial performance in the fourth quarter... Take-Two today is sharply focused on its core publishing business and is operating more productively and efficiently, while continuing to foster the extraordinary creative talent of our development teams.”

Added CEO Ben Feder, “Take-Two enters fiscal 2008 with the strongest, most diverse product lineup in our history – much of it internally developed and owned IP – which positions us well for the continued growth of the interactive entertainment market.”

[UPDATE: In an ongoing conference call with investors, Take-Two executives announced that beyond its upcoming fiscal 2008, which will include the previously announced exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV content for Xbox 360, the following year will also include new episodic content for the 360. No further details were offered on the content.]

Source:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16707 

1) Bioshock sales underestimated
2) More publishers give credit to Wii for increasing profits (or less losses)
3) It appears GTA IV really will, genuinely, honestly have exclusive 360 content

 It better since MS wrote then a fat check for it.

M$ might have exclusive content but whats stopping Sony from receiving alternate content?

Bod, do you mean Bioshock sales numbers on this site are too low? Cause don't forget that Bioshock also has a PC version and the numbers in this article are shipped numbers.

You mispelled $ony.

@ssj12, it would depend on how the contract is written with MS. It if specifically states that no other console can have exclusive content then no Sony will get the base version only. However, if it just specifies exclusive content, then they both could get mutually exclusive content.

Glad Wii is proving highly profitable for another big 3rd party. I forsee a lot more support from 2k and rockstar.

Those numbers for Bioshock and Carnival are shipped btw. Not sold through to consumers, but sold through to retailers.

They lost money in every quarter, Take-Two took a stock killing after their Fall quarter, and the largest game of the year (GTA) slipped into the next fiscal year. But hey, never mind that - it was a YEAR OF PROGRESS!

My understanding is that Microsoft paid to have exclusive content created and additionally to have exclusive access to additional content. This is reinforced by comments six months ago from a Rockstar representative that you need the Xbox 360 to experience the complete GTAIV.