Box office revenue may have reached an all-time high in 2009, but that hasn't stopped movie executives from fretting about a new phantom menace that's threatening ticket sales: the dreaded "Xbox factor."

Wired Game|Life is highlighting this article in the Telegraph about Hollywood bigwigs making the belated discovery that women—you know, the other half of the population—can be a box-office force to be reckoned with. The part of the story that really caught Wired's attention, though, was a comment from Mandalay Pictures chairman (and legendary Hollywood producer) Peter Guber, who notes that "a lot of young males are spending much more time on the Internet, games and UFC [ultimate fighting]." (I assume Guber means that more guys are watching ultimate fighting rather than actually ultimate fighting.)

Apparently, Guber isn't alone in worrying that because of video games, young dudes (and perhaps even some older dudes) "have diminished as a target" when it comes to the movies. As the Telegraph puts it, movie execs have wised up to the fact that "many young men and teenage boys increasingly prefer playing sophisticated video games to watching movies," a phenomenon that they're calling "the 'Xbox' factor." (And hey, it might even be possible that some women are under the spell of the "Xbox factor," too.)

There was once a guy from Finland named Simo Hayha. He was a farmer, and for fun he liked to practice shooting his rifle. He grew quite accomplished at it. Then, in 1939, the Red Army invaded Finland. At age 34, he decided he would take his rifle and shoot Soviets. He wore all white and would bury himself in the snow so Soviet soldiers wouldn’t see him until they walked by and he could kill them. He would put snow in his mouth so his breath couldn’t be detected in the 20-below air. The Soviets kept sending special units to hunt for just him. He would promptly shoot down the entire group. He killed a confirmed 505 Soviets with his rifle and some 200 more with a submachine gun. He did this all in 100 days flat. He was nicknamed “White Death.” He may be the greatest soldier of all time.