Strauss Zelnick
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Take-Two Interactive Software
Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that fiscal 2023 is off to a great start, highlighted by first quarter net bookings of $1 billion. Our performance demonstrates the quality of our games and our ability to engage audiences across the globe, despite the impacts of various macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.
This has been a milestone period in the history of our Company as we closed our combination with Zynga. This transaction firmly establishes Take-Two's position as one of the largest pure-play interactive entertainment companies in the world. We're home to the industry's top creative talent, and we own and control an exceptional, diverse portfolio of intellectual properties encompassing all key platforms and genres.
We're exceedingly optimistic about the long-term growth potential for the mobile industry as well as our ability to create greater shareholder value as a combined entity. Over the past few months, we've made significant progress in our integration efforts. Zynga, which is being run by the label's President, Frank Gibeau, established its ongoing leadership structure. Alongside Frank, we're fortunate to have numerous proven senior executives who will be instrumental in overseeing Zynga's day-to-day operations and taking our combined mobile business to the next level of success.
The integration of our corporate functions and systems has been tracking well, and we're pleased that our Day 1 plans were executed seamlessly with no disruptions to our business operations or player communities. While it's still early, we're confident that we can realize $100 million of annual cost synergies within two years post-close, and we're exploring additional areas of efficiencies. Our creative teams are in active discussions about potential projects, and we remain committed to delivering over $500 million of annual net bookings opportunities over time.
There are several meaningful drivers in mobile that we believe our teams can begin to activate this fiscal year, including implementing new bold beats, driven by new content and other live service enhancements, user acquisition optimization, creating a centralized library for development technologies and tools, enhancing the monetization of in-game advertising, and continuing to invest in our ad tech platform with Chartboost.
Over the intermediate and long term, our vision is to introduce mobile games for some of our most popular and proven intellectual properties that have the potential to be greatly additive to our financial profile. We've observed positive signs that some mobile players are looking for more sophisticated and immersive content, and we look forward to participating in this trend that should continue for the foreseeable future. We also see a tremendous opportunity to establish more meaningful presence in key mobile-first emerging markets.
Turning to our first quarter results on a pre-combination basis. Our net bookings of $731 million were within our previously stated outlook range, led by the outperformance of NBA 2K22 and WWE 2K22. Zynga's offerings complemented our results significantly for the period.
NBA 2K22 continued to dominate as the industry's leading basketball game with sell-in of over 12 million units to date, exceeding the series sell-in from the prior year. During the first quarter, engagement with the title remained strong with average games played per user increasing 16% year-over-year. In addition, NBA 2K22 arcade addition remains the Number 1 game in Apple Arcade since its launch in October 2021 and downloads of NBA 2K Mobile remained robust, driven by the Courtside Pass updates and content surrounding the NBA playoffs and finals. Our partnership with the NBA remains incredibly strong, and we look forward to the launch of NBA 2K23 in September.
Throughout the first quarter, 2K and Visual Concepts released a series of DLC packs to support WWE 2K22, which brought even more fan favorite superstars into the ring for what has been hailed by critics and consumers alike as our best WWE offering in the series. Engagement with the title has been outstanding, with more than 330 million in-game matches played and over 8.5 million hours of WWE 2K22 content viewed on Twitch. We greatly value our partnership with the WWE, and we're thrilled about the long-term opportunity to grow the franchise further together.
Rockstar Games capitalized on the momentum from last quarter's releases of Grand Theft Auto V for PlayStation 5 and Xbox series X and S, Grand Theft Auto Online standalone and the launch of GTA+ as the experience continues to captivate players. Latest generation console players of Grand Theft Auto Online grew over 40% this quarter and are monetizing at a rate 36% higher than players in the previous generation. GTA+, the premium membership available exclusively on those consoles, has seen consistent growth since launch. The GTA Online community remains strong and its audience size is operating in the new normal that is 49% higher than the pre-pandemic first quarter of fiscal 2020.
Sales of Grand Theft Auto V also remained strong. And to date, the title has sold-in nearly 170 million units. With development of the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series well underway, the Rockstar Games team is determined once again to set creative benchmarks for the series, our industry and for all entertainment just as the label has done with every one of their frontline releases.
We were also pleased with the performance of Red Dead Redemption 2, which continues to expand its audience and to date, has sold-in more than 45 million units worldwide. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands exceeded our expectations and continued to sustain healthy player engagement due in part to its robust post-launch content, which will continue throughout the fiscal year. The title has resonated with core fans and new audiences with nearly 40% of players having never before played a Borderlands title. Additionally, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands launched on Steam in June alongside its previously released DLC offerings.
Also in June, 2K and Supermassive Games launched The Quarry, an all-new horror narrative game, where every choice, big or small, shapes your story and determines who lives to tell the tale. The title launched to strong reviews with NPR declaring it this summer's best horror game and Variety calling at every horror fan's dream video game.
And Private Division released Void Riders, the first expansion for their critically acclaimed skateboarding action titled OlliOlli World from Roll 7. The expansion earned an 87 on OpenCritic, which was even higher than the base game's excellent review scores. Private Division will share more details regarding the game's second expansion later this year.
Recurrent consumer spending rose 48% and accounted for 73% of net bookings. This was significantly above our prior guidance due to the inclusion of Zynga for part of the quarter, which was not included previously as well as outperformance from our core portfolio. During the period, Zynga continued to experience strength in player engagement and retention, and we believe that we're maintaining our healthy market share on a global basis. Additionally, we delivered significant growth in advertising net bookings, which was offset by some pressure on in-app purchases due to current macroeconomic conditions and seasonality.
Some key highlights of our mobile offerings during the quarter include Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells featured an in-game event to celebrate the cinematic release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Empires & Puzzles introduced the game's fifth season, Dynasty of Dunes. Zynga Poker released the Omaha update, giving players a new way to enjoy the popular game. Words with Friends introduced Clubs, a new feature that expands the game's social experience by offering shared spaces that players can enjoy together. Rollic launched 11 games in the quarter and Colors Runners! reached the Number 1 top-free downloaded games position in the U.S. App Store in June.
Turning to our outlook. We now expect to deliver net bookings of $5.8 billion to $5.9 billion, which includes Zynga for part of the year. Our pipeline for the year continues to look very strong, and we're excited to expand significantly our mobile presence with a best-in-class platform. Our new forecast also takes into account some movement in our release slate for the year, foreign currency pressures and macroeconomic uncertainty. Lainie will provide more details shortly.
Looking ahead, our long-term vision is clearer than ever, and we believe that our combination with Zynga will enable us to capitalize better on the evolving dynamics of the interactive entertainment industry. As we deliver our expansive, diverse pipeline and pursue the vast opportunities that we've identified through our combination with Zynga, we see a path to engage even greater audiences around the world, grow our scale and enhance our margins.
I'll now turn the call over to Karl.
