Napster snubs games downloads

One of Europe’s biggest music download sites, Napster, has told MCV that it has ruled out a move into the digital download video games market.

Despite the enviable performance of the video games sector – and Napster reporting 23 per cent revenue growth for the full fiscal year 2007-2008 – the online firm maintained it would be sticking to music for now.

A spokesperson told MCV: We are not currently interested in the downloadable video games market as at this time we are focusing on our core strength which is music.

We do not think the market conditions are right to diversify our offering beyond music,” the download firm added.

Napster currently has an impressive three million registered users in six European markets for its music download service.

Industry watchers had expected the firm, which pitches itself as the original digital music service” and the pioneer of digital music”, to be a specialist with the skills and experience to be able to be one of the leaders of the anticipated move to video games downloads.

Napster’s current rejection of the video games download market could serve to discourage others from entering the download fray.