After NPD Group reported video game sales fell in September versus the previous year, Microsoft released some information on its recent sales stories and boasted its success in music-related games.

Xbox LIVE, the company said, has sold over 80% of the downloadable songs for music games and currently averages 3.8 million music downloads per month. Overall, Xbox 360 users have purchased more than 45 million music downloads for games in the "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" franchises. Between the two franchises, Xbox accounts for over six million copies of the games.

If Microsoft has an 80% market share for these song downloads, the entire market is doing 4.75 million songs per month.

Harmonix sold six million songs downloads for "Guitar Hero" in the first three months downloadable content was available.

In the two and a half months after the release of "Rock Band," reported Billboard in January,users had purchased 2.5 million songs through the game. "Guitar Hero" users had bought over five million songs in about the same time period.

LINK (via Coolfer)

For the year ended March 31, 2008, EMI lost £757 million (US $1.204 billion at today's rate) for private equity firm Terra Firma.
Revenues dropped 19% to £1.45 billion for the year ending March 2008.
EMI took a hit from £123 million of one-off restructuring costs. Most
telling was EMI Music's loss of global market share -- to 9% from 12% a
year earlier.

A PDF of the 101-page report can be downloaded here. It's good reading.

EMI Music's gross margin was 34% and EBITDA was £58 million (under
6% of sales). Operating loss restructuring costs were £150 million and
total operational loss was £250 million. Interest expense totaled £165
million and "other" financial charges amounted to £258 million.

EMI Music's physical sales were down 28% in fiscal 2008 while
digital rose 19% EMI Music revenues dropped 23% while EMI Publishing
revenues increased 2%. Revenue from CD sales accounted for less than
40% of publishing revenues in 2008 (the fraction was almost 60% in
1999).

LINK (via Coolfer)

As music games have become the most played genre (yes, more often played than 1st person shooters) the music game industry is starting to open up its doors to professional quality music controllers such as the Drum Rocker pro drum controller for RockBand. The controller is licensed hardware from the pro-audio company Alesis branded as Ion and can also plug into Alesis drum modules.

Derek Sivers chose 12 of the most exciting booths at PopKomm and made a video demo of each. He told us out of the 12, Relab was by far the most exciting booth he'd seen at PopKomm this year. Check out the video from his blog.

VIDEO LINK

Derek Sivers earned $22 million from the sale of CD Baby, according
to an interview surfacing Thursday.  Sivers sold the company to Disc
Makers in early August after a seven-month closing process.  "I knew
that was about the right price," Sivers disclosed to Venture Voice. 
"We actually didn't bicker or negotiate over the price one bit, I just
set a price and they said okay."

According to Sivers, CD Baby
pulled annual, top-line revenues of roughly $100 million at the
beginning of this year, a fourfold increase over a three-year period. 
The company employed 85 people at that point. 

LINK (via Digital Music News) 

Wall Street is bleeding, and bigger companies are exposed.  But smaller
outfits and smart entrepreneurs are continuing to eye opportunities. 
"There may be some opportunities to catch clients from bigger
companies," one boutique entertainment lawyer told Digital Music News. 
Meanwhile, lean-and-mean companies stand to benefit from a thinning
competitive pool, as well as the opportunity to pluck previously
unavailable talent.

LINK (via Digital Music News)

Sony BMG posted losses of $57 million during the recent, fiscal
second quarter, a plunge from a previous-year dip of $8 million. 
Overall revenues at the label group dropped 11 percent to $762 million
for the period ending September 30th.  In a quarterly earnings call
from now-parent Sony Corp., the drop was blamed on "the continued
decline in the worldwide physical music market," one that is "not being
offset by growth in digital product sales" and other initiatives. 
Restructuring costs for the period totaled $4 million.

Moving forward, the label group will become wholly owned by Sony Corp., and
bear the name Sony Music Entertainment.  The recent buyout gave partner
Bertelsmann an exit from the beleaguered recording business and a
troubled joint venture. 

Meanwhile, other majors are suffering.  Earlier this week, EMI Group posted
gargantuan losses of 757 million pounds ($1.2 billion) for the year ending
March 31st. Elsewhere, Warner Music Group is now suffering on Wall Street, though
its quarterly report comes November 25th.  Warner recently sold its
stake in Front Line Management to Ticketmaster for $123 million.

 LINK (via Digital Music News)

Following Amazon's decision to create a version of its digital music store for the new G1 phone from T-Mobile, ad-supported streaming service Imeem has unveiled it's own support for the new device.


The G1 phone is powered by technology from Google, dubbed "Android." It is an open platform that allows developers to create applications for it that users can then buy and download,
similar to the iPhone's App store.

LINK (via (Billboard)

Digital distribution firm TuneCore raised $7 million in new funding from Opus Capital,
saying it will use the new cash in part to expand artists services. The deal adds Opus Capital general partner Gill Cogan to the company's board of directors.

Jimmy Proximity's Jordan Wynnychuk will be on a panel discussion at the Mutek Festival on Friday May 30. Discussion topic: Copyright vs Creativity. Other panelists include Kode9 and XLR8R editor Ken Taylor.