Everyone's a Hero - Part Two

Three years ago not at all. I think it was really too early to focus on it until now, because until now really only the Xbox was connected. But now, as all the first parties are moving towards greater connectivity, that market place just really opens up - that's why this year's game, having forward compatibility and being able to bring your music with you, that's a big advancement.

We have a really exciting slate, including five Rolling Stones songs, and we just see a constant rise in the percentage of our users that are connected to the internet, the percentage that are playing online, and the percentage that are downloading music - it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Well, we don't release that, but I'll tell you that each month is a record versus the previous month, and it's getting to the point of being interesting.

Our relationship with the majors for the most part is pretty terrific. We see value in each other - obviously we wouldn't be a music game without the music, but the labels and the artists see great benefits because we have over 40 million games sold.

We're able to introduce artists to whole new fan bases, re-introduce artists to previous fan bases that have perhaps haven't kept up with the band. That's led to increased catalogue sales and off World Tour, we did some research and found that if a song was in that game it increased catalogue sales by 50 per cent.

So we help artists meet new fans, reconnect with their fans, sell their catalogues, go out on tour more effectively because their music is popular again, get great radio play as a result of it... so for the most part there's a desire from most of the artists - not everybody - to be in the game. That's great for us, for the record labels, for the artists and most importantly for the fans.

When we do special edition games, like we're doing with Renegade for DJ Hero - with Eminem and Jay-Z - it's really the primary game with an upgraded turntable, stand and case, and a new music CD (one from Eminem, one from Jay-Z). That's amazing value to any fan, and particularly their fans, and they were very excited about that - in fact they're going to be in the commercial.

For Van Halen, again - we do a game like Van Halen because we honour the greatness of Van Halen, and it gives fans a chance to experience them in a way they never could have before which is to be part of the band. I think they are, and we are, extremely enthusiastic.

Not every band wants to do it, or understands it, or wants to be associated with the technology. We respect and appreciate that - but for the most part it's a great relationship. We can offer them tremendous value because we can offer their fans tremendous value - and of course we pay for every song in licensing, so the more successful the game is, the more money they make.

I think the economy has affected everybody. What videogames are, and what Activision has always tried to do - and Guitar Hero really reflects this - is to create the greatest value for your entertainment dollar.

When you consider the amount of time they play Guitar Hero - when they play it and the frequency with which they play - the cost per hour to play is almost insignificant. To that degree, when you can get great value, we think that makes us something that consumers should really want... and they've shown us that they do.

So to that degree I wouldn't say we're better or worse than other forms of entertainment - I think people should choose their own forms of entertainment - but when you do the math, Guitar Hero for USD 59 with 82 artists and 85 songs... and if I were to buy those 85 songs it would cost me USD 85... I can play it alone, I can play it with my friends, I can play it online, I can play it forever - it's really hard to argue that we haven't created enormous value for the consumer.

One of the great things about what we do is that we should be neutral and ubiquitous - so we'll work on whatever our consumers want to play on. We still develop for the PlayStation 2 and we have very good sales on that console. The PS3 Slim has done very well, and we're thrilled with the great partnership we have there.

The Wii is also an amazing partnership, and actually the game that's played on the Wii is a different game to that played on other platforms. And Xbox has just been phenomenal - so we enjoy great relationships with all of them, and we'd like to continue to develop for all of them as long as it makes sense to our fans, and economically for us.