Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Games 'to outsell' music, video in 2008

Thought this news report from the BBC was interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7709298.stm

Not just for the news that so many games (and games machines) are being sold (which should interest Derek at the Consolarium) but for the observation about music sales:
It is online sales of CDs and DVDs that have grown rapidly, rather than digital downloads, which still only account for around 4% of music and video sales.
This seems to imply they've combined music and video sales to get this statistic and I suspect that the market share of music may be higher than 4%.

I find it slightly comforting that people still want to buy a physical product. Certainly, I like the artwork, the lyrics, the details about who played what on which track etc. that you get with a CD but quite apart from that, I like having a physical copy of something I've paid for. In fact, I usually make a copy to CD of any music I have downloaded... when legally allowed to do so obviously. :-)

It may be that even homo zappiens would rather have a physical disc than an intangible mp3 file. For example, I was slightly surprised to discover this when I chatted to a teenager recently. He is a keen music fan, he plays in at least three bands, and has a fairly healthy music collection. I mentioned to him a site where you could legally download, for free, a load of music mp3s from a band I knew he liked. But he said, "Nah! I'd prefer to get the CDs." I suspect I am more mercenary than him. I prefer to have it on CD but if I can get it free or very cheap, then... :-)

I hope to say more on mp3 downloads in a future post. In the meantime, what do you think? Mp3 or CD? Leave a comment or answer the new poll I've just posted.


Now playing: Deep Purple - Strange Kind Of Woman
via FoxyTunes

P.S. I've just lost the game. :-(

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

food for thought David
it took me a long long time to move from Vinyl to CD - in fact I still have 100's of LPs in the attic along with a turntable that sounds better than any CD player I have ever heard. But make the move I did. Now I very rarely buy a CD, I don't really miss the boxes and there is a lot less clutter in the room. I take them with me - on holiday, in the car, on the train etc etc on an ipod or other MP3 player. OK so the sound quality isn’t as good but neither is my hearing.

David said...

Hello Alan

I still have my LPs to (my children call then "those black CDs") but recently bowed to the inevitable and packed away the turntable. :-(

I should have said thought that although I want to have a physical CD, almost all the music I listen to now is from iTunes/iPod. MP3s are much easier to access and transport... but I still want my CD to rip from!

David said...

Worth noting that I got three replies on Twitter.

joecar @DavidDMuir live streaming lastfm or seeqpod hits that random itch I had to get jiggy with iggy following your post cds are in our attic 4:32 PM Nov 5th from web in reply to DavidDMuir

andymcswan @DavidDMuir MP3 for me all the way, If I was a music purist records would be a better option than CD 5:19 PM Nov 5th from Netvibes in reply to DavidDMuir

katiebarrowman @DavidDMuir mp3 all the way. Small flat, you see. 6 days ago from web in reply to DavidDMuir


Also, worth noting that 9 out of the 12 votes in my poll were for MP3. I guess MP3 is more popular than I thought.