Activision Blizzard (ATVI)

Our industry is highly competitive and our competition may succeed in narrowing our market share and reducing our sales.

We compete primarily with other publishers of personal computer and video game console interactive entertainment software and peripherals. Our competitors vary in size from small companies with limited resources to very large corporations with significantly greater financial, marketing, and product development resources than we have. In addition, integrated video game console hardware and software companies such as Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft compete directly with us in the development of software titles for their respective platforms. Certain of these competitors can spend more money and time on developing and testing products, undertake more extensive marketing campaigns, adopt more aggressive pricing policies, pay higher fees to licensors for desirable motion picture, television, sports, music and character properties, and pay more to third-party software developers than we can.

We also compete with other forms of entertainment and leisure activities. For example, we believe that the overall growth in the use of the Internet and online services by consumers may pose a competitive threat if customers and potential customers spend less of their available time using interactive entertainment software and more using the Internet and online services. A number of software publishers who compete with us have developed and commercialized or are currently developing online games for use by consumers over the Internet. Future increased consumer acceptance and increases in the availability of online games or technological advances in online game software or the Internet could result in a decline in platform-based software and negatively impact sales of our products. Direct sales of software over the Internet by competitors could materially adversely affect our distribution business.

Competition in our industry is intense and we expect new competitors to continue to emerge.