On the market demand side, as the European debt crisis continued, global economy remained weak in the second quarter of 2012. Governments and enterprises worldwide were pushed to adopt austerity policies, which set back demand for enterprise desktop PCs in Euro Zone countries and led to a significant decline in the shipment of branded vendors. The industry's shipment to emerging markets such as China and India was also affected, seeing a slowdown in growth momentum. The second quarter, traditionally an off-season for desktop PCs, coupled with lackluster economic conditions, had further slackened market demand for desktop PCs. Despite the sluggish market demand, due to the release of the PC game Diablo 3 (D3) in May, replacement demand for high-end models¡Xparticularly in the United States, Korea, and Hong Kong where the game is most popular¡Xwas unleashed. This is mainly due to the fact that playing the D3 game requires a certain level of hardware support, such as processors and graphics cards.