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Best Buy Talks Up Print CD Sleeves
April 27, 2007

Big box retailers–Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, etc.–now have 65% of the market for printed music CDs, and downloads. Record stores, like bookstores, are a threatened species.

Downloads and iPod enthusiam notwithstanding, CDs still account for 85% of music sales. But CD sales have dropped 20%, challenging for printers of related packaging and liner notes. Industry leaders include Cinram, which in 2003 took over the former Time Warner media production business; and MeadWestvaco’s AGIMedia.

Big retailers can no longer sell CDs at list prices of $15.99 and up, notes a report in the Wall St. Journal. Best Buy VP Gary Arnold tells the paper today that consumers think of CDs as $10 commodities. Recording studios should release no-frills packages for CDs following a “paperback book model” and more elaborate packages for die-hard fans.

This just in:
–Pot-calls-kettle-black department. An ad campaign trashing the coal industry for global warming–Face It: Coal is Filthy–was “outed.” Turns out the secret sponsors were the gas industry.
–Board-game producer Hasbro, Inc. is working with Sony on a trading card component of the The Eye of the Judgement video game for the Playstation3. The global deal taps Hasbro’s patented Wizards of the Coast trading card games and play methods. Hasbro also produces popular Magic cards.
Hasbro will create, manufacture and distribute the trading cards associated with video game. A new style of gameplay will use a 3 x 3 board and trading cards, each encrypted with CyberCode.
Players place coded cards in front of a Playstation scanner so respective card creatures come to life and battle. Each creature has various skills which will determine the outcome of the battle. www.hasbro.com

Posted by Bill Esler on April 27, 2007 | Comments (0)