Mr. Fargo: Interplay Entertainment, we're an entertainment software publisher. We've been in business now for 17 years and we've been a publisher for over a decade. That is, we were a developer for other publishers before we became a publisher ourselves. And we are one of the top PC publishers in the world. We have top 10 market share in most all of the major territories throughout the world. Some of our bigger titles are Baldur's Gate, which has sold over one million units worldwide, Giants, Sacrifice, and the Star Trek franchise are the things that we're most well-known for. We also do some console publishing. Console publishing is that as defined by the Nintendo formats, or the Sega formats, or the Sony PlayStation or PlayStation 2. Eighty-five percent of our revenues come from PC and 15% come from consoles. We expect to increase that over the next year and turn it into a 50/50 mix. I'm the founder of the company. I founded it some 17 years ago. We went public just a couple of years or so ago, and here we are.
TWST: What's the competitive landscape like?
Mr. Fargo: Well, the landscape is very competitive. And part of the
reason for that is that this is a very exciting business. If you have a
successful title it can change your company forever. If you look at,
I'll pick a competitor's title, Tomb Raider, and I think the series now
has sold 30 million copies. Well, at a wholesale price average of $30,
you're talking $1 billion worth of revenue from one single franchise. So
those sorts of things happening help generate a lot of competition and a
lot of excitement. So the real key in this business is to mitigate your
risk with tried and true revenue producers while sprinkling in the
titles like that that have the opportunity to sell those kinds of units.
My competitors are some of the largest companies in the space. The real
bellwether company is Electronic Arts whose sports titles have been
their benchmark. But we also have some of the studios such as Fox, Sony,
of course Nintendo. In addition, we have Microsoft coming into the fray.
Again, this is just to show you how lucrative this industry is. I think
I read last year that the Sony PlayStation represented some 30%-40% of
all of Sony's profits, for all the divisions added up. I'm certain that
Microsoft is taking a look at that and saying, 'We need to be in that
space.' So, certainly, some of the biggest companies in the world are
looking at this, and then we have some smaller boutique firms throughout
our industry.
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