Microsoft have announced that the Zune will officially be a hockey playing, moose loving, beer drinker.  The Zune team has made the official annoucement at CES 2008.

 “We are excited to offer Canadians an alternative music experience with Zune,” said Zune Canada group manager Craig Tullett.

Microsoft launched the Zune in the U.S. in November of 2006 with a 30 GB model.

Last year the company eclipsed its stated goal of selling one million Zunes, shipping a total of 1.2 million. By comparison, since launching the first iPod in 2001, Apple has sold more than 100 million units, and more than three billion songs through the iTunes store.

U.S. album sales died another 9.5 percent in 2007 according to figures released recently. A total of 500.5 million albums sold as CDs, cassettes(do people still have cassette players?), LPs (wow!) and other formats (8 track anyone?) were purchased last year, down 15 percent from 2006’s unit total, said Nielsen SoundScan. About 850 million digital tracks sold in 2007 from places such as iTunes, Zune.Net, Amazon.com and Emusic, compared to 588 million in 2006, and digital album sales accounting for 10 percent of total album purchases. Last year, iTunes became the third-largest music retailer in the U.S - behind Wal*Mart and Best Buy.

Overall music purchases, including albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos, rose to 1.35 billion units, up 14 percent from 2006. The decline in music sales isn’t due solely to LemonWire and BitTorrent though, with more music becoming available on Xbox 360 in games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, along with an increase in video game prices and DVDs, consumers are having a hard time deciding what to buy with their dollars, pounds and euros.

Scarily, Josh Groban had the best-selling album with “Noel.” The album, a collection of Christmas songs, sold around 3.7 million copies. High School Musical soundtrack came in second with around 2.9 million units sold and The Eagles’ comeback album, “Long Road Out of Eden,” finished third selling around 2.6 million copies. No Eminem, Madonna, Radiohead, Coldplay or Amy Winehouse to keep up the real music sales then….

Universal Music Group came out top with 31.9%, Sony BMG, rolled in second with with 24.97 percent, Warner Music remained third-largest, with a 20.2 percent share. EMI ranked fourth with a 9.3 percent share. A report released in November by Jupiter Research forecast digital music sales will continue to grow to $2.8 billion, comprising 34 percent of U.S. consumer spending on music in 2012. The recording industry continued to benefit from mobile music, with mobile phone owners buying 220 million ringtones - something the record execs keep quiet about when talking about revenue numbers - as they know they’re ripping off the consumers.

EMusic subscribers downloaded nearly 500,000 tracks and audio books on Christmas Day alone. The company’s paid subscriber base exceeded 400,000 at the close of the year.

News that Sony BMG is moving to DRM-free downloads means all the major record labels have removed copyright-protection from their downloads - but what does this mean for Zune.Net and iTunes? Industry analysts have said Apple probably will lose market share in digital downloads as the majors gravitate away from DRM, the resulting increase in online music sales outlets will likely create a larger market in general.

The iTunes market share will decline, predicted Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media, but the move away from DRM “will probably stimulate demand for the iPod.” Sony’s move follows the other Big Four labels — Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI Music — that have defected from DRM over the past year as the music industry attempts to find a digital strategy that makes money and doesn’t piss off users. Warner Music recently said parts of its catalog would be open to Amazon.com shoppers.

Michael Nash, a vice president of digital strategy for Warner, said Dec. 27 that the label was dumping DRM because it needed to counter the dominance of Apple, which since 2003 has sold more than 3 billion songs — most of them coded with DRM that only plays on the popular iPod. DRM-free songs can be played on the more than 100 million iPods and iPhones already sold, but non-Apple DRM-coded downloads largely don’t operate with Apple devices.

However, Rojas suggested that, with the death of DRM, the iPod could begin losing its dominance to competitors like Microsoft’s Zune, which is incompatible with Apple’s FairPlay.
Still, DRM has not stopped online piracy. The Recording Industry Association of America says billions of dollars are lost each year to pirates. “Because DRM has not stopped piracy, one way of stimulating legitimate sales is to empower competitors to iTunes,” said Inside Digital Media’s Leigh.

The RIAA, which has sued more than 20,000 people, did not immediately respond for comment on Sony’s reported abandonment of DRM. Ray Beckerman, a New York attorney who defends individuals sued for unlawful downloading, suspected the industry would forge ahead with its lawsuits.