THQ 2008 Annual Report Download - page 10

Our global sales network includes offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. In the U.S.
and Canada, we market and distribute games directly to mass merchandisers, consumer electronic stores,
discount warehouses and other national retail chain stores. Internationally, we market and distribute
games on a direct-to-retail basis in the territories where we have a direct sales force and to a lesser extent,
in the territories where we do not have a direct sales force, third parties distribute our games. We also
globally market and distribute games and other content for wireless devices through major wireless carriers
and distribute games digitally via the internet.
We were originally incorporated in New York in 1989 as Trinity Acquisition Corporation, which changed its
name in 1991 to T.HQ, Inc. following a merger with THQ, Inc., a California corporation. We were
reincorporated in Delaware as THQ Inc. in 1997. Our principal executive offices are located at 29903
Agoura Road, Agoura Hills, California 91301, and our telephone number is [phone]. Our internet
address is http://www.thq.com.
Strategy
We offer consumers a broad portfolio of video game titles for all ages that are playable on all popular
platforms. In order to remain a leading publisher of interactive entertainment software, our strategy is to
use our portfolio to bring the right products to the right platforms at the right times. We believe this
strategy will allow us to increase our revenues and expand our market share. We are also focused on
increasing the profitability of our business. We pursue our strategy through four key areas as follows:
•Increase sales and profits from our leading portfolio of mass-market franchises
We have grown and diversified our products targeted at the mass market by managing some of the biggest
brands in entertainment in the video game category. We currently have key licenses to publish video games
based on certain intellectual properties owned by The Walt Disney Company’s Pixar Animation Studios
(‘‘Pixar’’), World Wrestling Entertainment (‘‘WWE’’) (through our joint venture with JAKKS Pacific, Inc.),
Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Animation, MGA, Zuffa LLC’s Ultimate Fighting Championship and Marvel.
We have increased sales in each of the last 13 fiscal years by leveraging these licensed brands both by
introducing new products and through continued sale of our catalog of existing titles. In the fiscal year
ended March 31, 2008 (‘‘fiscal 2008’’), we significantly grew revenue from games based on the WWE
brand, shipping six million units of the new SmackDown vs. Raw! 2008 title. We shipped more than four
million units of games based on Disney•Pixar’s Ratatouille and more than one million units of Cars 2:
Mater National in fiscal 2008. We also shipped three million units of new games based on the Nickelodeon
brand in fiscal 2008.
In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009 (‘‘fiscal 2009’’), we plan to continue to execute on this strategy by
shipping new mass-market titles for leading console and handheld platforms, as well as PC. Key upcoming
titles include games based on Disney•Pixar’s WALL•E; WWE Smackdown vs. Raw! 2009 and WWE
Legends of Wrestlemania; Nickelodeon titles including Tak, SpongeBob, and new music games based on
Naked Brothers Band; Bratz: Girls Really Rock!; and others.
Additionally, in order to increase our profits, our goal is to shift more development to our internal
development studios. In fiscal 2008, we continued to develop our key Disney•Pixar and Nickelodeon titles
internally. We also hold a long-term agreement with Yuke’s to continue to develop games based on the
WWE brand. Yuke’s has consistently delivered high-quality WWE games since we started working with
them in 1999. As discussed further in ‘‘Note 8—Other Long-Term Assets’’ in the notes to the consolidated
financial statements, we own less than a 20% interest in Yuke’s.
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