DVDs and CDs out, video games in

The US arm of retailer Best Buy is to increase the shelf space it gives to video games by cutting the allocation granted to DVDs and CDs.

Daily Finance reports that the extra footage will be used to maximise sales of new launches such as PlayStation Move and Kinect, as well as netbooks and tablets computers such as the Apple iPad.

They tried selling guitars in that space when Rock Band and Guitar Hero were hot,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves told the site. Best Buy has recognized for quite awhile that CDs and DVDs are going away, and they have huge chunks of the stores devoted to them.

Retail itself is hard, and when your product prices are dropping, it’s even harder. Best Buy needs a new product cycle. Maybe it’s motion-based gaming, maybe it is 3D TVs or tablets, but they need a new product.”

Music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz added: Best Buy can better use that space. They used to use the CDs as a loss leader, but they can’t do that anymore. If you look at the music business, they killed the cassette and vinyl, and this is killing CDs, irrelevant of the demand. If they don’t stock them in stores, it will kill the CD.”