Royalties And Licenses

12 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Royalties And Licenses [Abstract]

Royalties And Licenses

(9) ROYALTIES AND LICENSES

Our royalty expenses consist of payments to (1) content licensors, (2) independent software developers, and (3) co-publishing and distribution affiliates. License royalties consist of payments made to celebrities, professional sports organizations, movie studios and other organizations for our use of their trademarks, copyrights, personal publicity rights, content and/or other intellectual property. Royalty payments to independent software developers are payments for the development of intellectual property related to our games. Co-publishing and distribution royalties are payments made to third parties for the delivery of products.

During fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, we did not recognize any material losses or impairment charges on royalty-based commitments.

The current and long-term portions of prepaid royalties and minimum guaranteed royalty-related assets, included in other current assets and other assets, consisted of (in millions):

	As of March 31,
	2021		2020
Other current assets	$	24	$	74
Other assets	20		25
Royalty-related assets	$	44	$	99

At any given time, depending on the timing of our payments to our co-publishing and/or distribution affiliates, content licensors, and/or independent software developers, we classify any recognized unpaid royalty amounts due to these parties as accrued liabilities. The current and long-term portions of accrued royalties, included in accrued and other current liabilities and other liabilities, consisted of (in millions):

	As of March 31,
	2021		2020
Accrued royalties	$	210	$	171
Other liabilities	—		26
Royalty-related liabilities	$	210	$	197

As of March 31, 2021, we were committed to pay approximately $1,945 million to content licensors, independent software developers, and co-publishing and/or distribution affiliates, but performance remained with the counterparty (i.e., delivery of the product or content or other factors) and such commitments were therefore not recorded in our Consolidated Financial Statements. See Note 14 for further information on our developer and licensor commitments.