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TWST: Can you begin with a brief historical sketch and an overview of SCi Entertainment's (London: SEG.L)products and services?

Mr. Murphy: SCI is a publisher of computer games, which means that we publish for all the major game platforms, such as Sony, PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and PC. The company has been in operation for about 15 years, which makes it one of the longest surviving companies in the games’ industry, and over that time we have published a number of products on all different platforms. In recent years some of our most successful products have been products such Carmageddon, The Italian Job and a product called Conflict: Desert Storm.

TWST: Are you contracted to produce games?

Mr. Murphy: No. One of the keys for us is actually making sure we own the intellectual property, so we come up with ideas for games and we own those games entirely. We will therefore be responsible for getting those games developed, acquiring all the rights that we need to for those games and then we are an approved publisher for the various platforms.

TWST: The last time we spoke to your company, you were hoping to move from being so centered around gaming, to become more of a general electronics entertainment company. Can you talk a little bit about the way the company has evolved over the last two years?

Mr. Murphy: What we have done, is to continue to look at the opportunities in that area. Essentially we are into interactive entertainment and we are happy to develop our products across whatever areas are going to be profitable platforms, so for example, we have looked very closely at the area of mobile phones in the last couple of years and we have done one or two products in that area, such as a Thunderbirds game a couple of years ago and also a football game. We are very careful though, to make sure that we only really invest significantly in those areas when the business model is clear and profitable. Having studied the mobile area over the last couple of years, we don’t feel yet that they are profitable enough to warrant further investment by us. At the moment we are therefore keeping a close eye on those areas and we are really looking to see whether they become successful platforms for us before we head further down that route.

TWST: What can you highlight on the company’s agenda for the next 12 to 24?

Mr. Murphy: We believe, certainly in the next couple of the years, the key things are to continue the strategy that we have had, focusing on trying to build strong brands and strong franchises. What we look to do is to have a series of successful franchises and that’s clearly the most successful financial model for a publisher. So having launched out our conflict series with Conflict Desert Storm, we have several more products in that pipeline to come. We have to build on that success similarly with the Rally series and with other franchises and we therefore feel its a very strong opportunity for someone like us, who has the financial ability to develop strong games and to bring them to market around the world, but is at the same time small enough to able to make sure that we can hang on to the best people and work for the strongest developers. Again we feel, particularly with the growth in the market, that we are poised to go into a very successful period.