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Take-Two, in need of a hit, gets one with Red Dead Redemption

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The video game industry looks to have won the West. Or, given sales for video games this year, maybe it’s the West that has won the industry.

Take-Two Interactive reported Tuesday that Red Dead Redemption, the video game set in the Old West that the company released on May 18, has sold more than 5 million units to retailers worldwide.

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That elevates the game to mega-hit status after less than a month on store shelves. The last game to sell more copies so quickly was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, in November.

Unlike Modern Warfare 2 and most video game hits in recent years, however, Red Dead Redemption is not a sequel or established brand. 2004’s Red Dead Revolver, on which Redemption is loosely based, sold fewer than a million copies in the U.S., according to the NPD Group.

Red Dead Redemption, which received favorable reviews, is the first major hit for Take-Two’s Rockstar Games label apart from its Grand Theft Auto brand. 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV, one of the most successful video games of all time, has sold a total of 17 million units.

The game now will likely become a franchise for Rockstar with sequels, spinoffs, and downloadable content.

It comes at a time when overall video game revenue fell 8% in the U.S. during the first four months of the year, according to the NPD Group.

Based in large part on sales of Red Dead Redemption, Take-Two revised upward its projections for fiscal year revenue ending Oct. 30 to between $880 million and $980 million, from $725 million to $925 million. But it won’t be enough, however, to fix some of Take-Two’s long-running problems and lift the company into the black. Still, Take-Two narrowed its expected net loss to between 10 cents and 30 cents per share from previous guidance of between 40 cents and 60 cents per share.

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During the quarter ended April 30, which didn’t include any revenue from Red Dead Redemption, Take-Two’s revenue grew 54% from the same period a year ago to $268 million and swung to net income of $16.9 million from a net loss of $10.4 million.

-- Ben Fritz

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