Not a lot happening on the Beatles downloads front, but today it has been announced that the Beatles tracks are to be made available for download on the computer game Rock Band.
Apple Corps, The Beatles licensing company have so far ignored the digital downloads market, but its reluctance doesn’t seem so daft now, given the phenomenal growth of karaoke-style play along games such as Rock Band. Although digital song sales brought in over $2bn last year, most of which is through Apple’s iTunes Store, the market for music-based games including Guitar Hero and Rock Band is half as large at $1.2bn, and is growing at a far faster rate.
The Nintendo Wii demonstrates how successful technology companies can be when they remember the basics. And it also shows how much real value can be generated - and real money returned to creators - when the music business thinks about licensing, rather than merely shifting units.
So with this recent move, are we any closer to seeing the tracks from the Beatles catalogue on the iTunes platform or the like.
Beatles fr Christmas No1 - 10 anybody?