Activision Aims for Sweet Spot

Q: But aren't there tradeoffs? How can you exploit both new- and old-generation devices while putting a significant amount of effort into both?

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick

We're a big enough company now that we have to support new platforms and old platforms. I don't think supporting old platforms is at the expense of supporting new platforms. The skills and capabilities and the experience in terms of use of technology is different in supporting new platforms than it is on the prior platforms. You look at our company from a development organization perspective, we have both.

Q: Sure, but everybody has limited resources.

We've strategically developed those resources so that they're focused on that opportunity. They're not at the expense of doing next-generation development. We have lots of next-generation development under way. Our strategy is 10 to 12 big franchises each year exploited across multiple platforms. And if you really are going to take the brand focus that we have adopted and you're going to be true to it, you can't ignore a platform. The only way that you can successfully exploit that franchise is to be on every platform. So that's integral to our strategy.

Q: Are there any opportunities you see out there that you don't have the resources to pursue today?

I view my greatest responsibility here as prioritization of opportunity. So, I think we're pretty well resourced for opportunities today.

The challenge for us is to make sure that we have access to adequate human resources in all areas. The one area where you have the greatest dearth is in the development area. [The new consoles] have a different architecture than has existed to date. And you don't really have a pool of talented people that have experience in parallel processing. And so, developing that is going to take some time. That's the one area where companies will be competing for a relatively small pool of talent.

Q: Tony Hawk is one of your key franchises. How long can you continue to refresh that series?

Madden is probably on its 16th year? I view Tony Hawk as a franchise that we should be exploiting every year forever. I don't see any reason why we can't.