Sony May Open Retail Stores
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By ELLIOT SPAGAT    COSTA MESA, Calif.  -- Few people took notice when Sony Electronics Inc...
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The world's leading retailer may be ready to nibble at smaller concepts.
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Sony Corp. 6758.T said on Wednesday it   will launch nine new LCD TV models in Japan in the next few   months including a 52-inch high-definition set, aiming at   demand in the critical year-end holiday shopping season.
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The electronic gadgets retailer talks up strategies for growth.
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Sony Corp.  said on Monday  U.S. sales of electronics have been better than expected so far  this holiday shopping season, fueled by demand for flat panel  televisions and digital cameras.
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Few people took notice when Sony Electronics Inc. opened a tiny storefront last year here at South Coast Plaza, a swanky mall south of Los Angeles.
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Sony launches its high-powered new game console in North America, but offers little hope that supply will catch up to demand any time soon. By Chris Kohler.
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Sony Corp. said Tuesday it will launch   an electronic book store on the Internet and start selling a   device that displays e-books purchased from the store October   1, after missing an earlier unveiling in the Spring due to   technical reasons.
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Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card&#39;s covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears&#39; &quot;Blackout&quot; and Barry Manilow&#39;s &quot;The Greatest Songs of the Seventies.&quot;In contrast, online retailer&#160;Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks&#160;in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple&#39;s&#160;iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks&#160;in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.About 4,500 retail outlets in the U.S. will sell the Platinum MusicPass cards by the end of the month, including Best Buy, Target, Trans World, Fred&#39;s, and Winn-Dixie, according to Sony-BMG. In Canada, the cards will sell through Best Buy, CD Plus, and Wal-Mart, and later through record store HMV.Online sales will &quot;ultimately be part of the game plan&quot; for at least one of those retail outlets, said a source familiar with the offering.With Valentine&#39;s Day approaching, Sony-BMG is counting on demand for gift cards to boost sales of the downloads, as well as the collectible nature of the cards themselves, which feature images of the artists and information about the albums.Sony-BMG will offer &quot;expanded&quot; versions of two of the initial offerings -- Celine Dion&#39;s &quot;Taking Chances&quot; and Kenny Chesney&#39;s &quot;Just Who I Am: Poets &amp; Pirates.&quot; These will retail for around $19.99 and in addition to the Platinum version will also include an additional album from the artist&#39;s back catalog.When they first considered online music sales, major record labels initially insisted that download services such as Apple&#39;s iTunes Store encrypt their tracks with DRM technology to prevent copying.Smaller labels sold unprotected MP3 files through sites like eMusic.com, gambling that the increased sales and notoriety that would come with easier access to their music would outweigh sales lost through unauthorized copying.That argument eventually won favor with Apple, which last May began offering tracks from EMI without DRM for a small premium, later bringing the price down to the same $0.99 it charges for other tracks with DRM.Amazon followed suit in September, selling unprotected MP3 files from EMI and Universal. Warner joined them on Dec. 28.The record companies all say they hope the move will lead to greater online music sales.Sony-BMG said it hopes its combined model, selling a download pass through a physical store, will lead to greater sales of physical and digital music.Albums need a boost, as the number sold in the U.S. dropped again last year, even as the number of music purchases rose, market watcher Nielsen SoundScan reported last week.U.S. music buyers made 1.4 billion music purchases in 2007, up from 1.2 billion a year earlier, Nielsen said.Nielsen counts a purchase as an album, single, CD or online download. Within that figure, digital track sales rose from 582 million to 844 million as buyers cherry-picked the tracks they liked from albums available online, while physical album sales (whether sold in-store or over the Internet, but excluding downloads) fell to 451 million in 2007, from 556 million in 2006, it said.But if U.S. consumers are making more music purchases, they may be spending less: Nielsen also counts something it calls track-equivalent album sales, in which it counts 10 track downloads as the equivalent of an album. By that measure, track-equivalent album sales fell 9.5 percent to 585 million in 2007, from 646 million in 2007.&#160;
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Consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. said on Thursday it is mulling a major strategic shift to make digital music devices that play MP3 song files.
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Home Depot Inc.  is considering a  sale, spin-off or initial public offering of its wholesale  distribution unit, HD Supply, as it focuses on its retail  business, the company said on Monday.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc.  is  considering acquisitions in its home market as it seeks to open  smaller stores and limit its reliance on giant supercenters for  growth, the Financial Times reported in its online edition.
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The holiday shopping season is set to be a shoot-&#39;em-up round in the video game industry, as its top players Nintendo and Sony go head to head by launching new and advanced hand-held machines.
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The company will fight the order to reveal its software code to rivals. Also: Startup wants Google to feel outdated & hellip;. Sony plasters Europe with Walkmans & hellip;. and more.
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Sony is planning to launch a Blu-ray Disc player in the middle of this year that's significantly cheaper than many current models on the market.
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Would-be buyers queue up to try new titles on Sony's long-awaited console at Tokyo Game Show.
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Sony Corp (6758.T) will launch a  cheaper model of its PlayStation 3 in the United States, hoping  to attract more buyers as it goes up against rival game  consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo this holiday.