Filed under: Products and services, Management, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, News Corp’B’ (NWS)

Billboard reported early Friday that English band Coldplay’s fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, is set to see nearly 300,000 duplicates sold before the weekend is over after being released in the UK on Thursday. The trade magazine reports as well that in the first day of sales, 125,000 copies were sold, making the album well on its way to passing by the band’s last album, X&Y, which sold 464,000 copies in the UK during the first week it was released.

Official UK Charts Company, the chart compiler in the UK reported to Billboard as well that the album’s sales of 125,000 easily “outsells the rest of the top five biggest selling albums, which have benefited from a full week on sale.” In the UK, Coldplay already holds the record for second best first-week seller in chart history with X&Y from three years ago. The number one spot is held by Oasis with 695,000 duplicates sold for 1997’s Be Here Now.

These early sales figures must be a nice boost for the band’s label, privately held EMI Group. In recent weeks, rumors and critics of the company and its current owners, the private equity firm Terra Firma, have revealed that Viva la Vida is an album that the label is hinging its summer and possibly its year-round sales on.

The album’s success was never in doubt by many onlookers, but with EMI’s troubles growing after layoffs and management shuffling, its success will be a great relief. Unfortunately, marketing and advertising for the album has seen more of a push from the band on its own website, News Corporation’s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace, and through a television commercial for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store, where a pre-order has been offered with bonus tracks.

Viva la Vida will be released by EMI’s Capitol Records in the United States on June 17.

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Filed under: Products and services, Management, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising, News Corp’B’ (NWS)

Billboard reported early Friday that English band Coldplay’s fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, is set to see almost 300,000 copies sold before the weekend is over after being released in the UK on Thursday. The trade magazine reports as well that in the first day of sales, 125,000 duplicates were sold, making the album well on its way to passing by the band’s last album, X&Y, which sold 464,000 duplicates in the UK during the first week it was released.

Official UK Charts Company, the chart compiler in the UK reported to Billboard as well that the album’s sales of 125,000 easily “outsells the rest of the top five biggest selling albums, which have benefited from a full week on sale.” In the UK, Coldplay already holds the record for second ideal first-week seller in chart history with X&Y from three years ago. The number one spot is held by Oasis with 695,000 copies sold for 1997’s Be Here Now.

These early sales figures must be a nice boost for the band’s label, privately held EMI Group. In recent weeks, rumors and critics of the company and its current owners, the private equity firm Terra Firma, have revealed that Viva la Vida is an album that the label is hinging its summer and possibly its year-round sales on.

The album’s success was never in doubt by many onlookers, but with EMI’s troubles growing after layoffs and management shuffling, its success will be a great relief. Unfortunately, marketing and advertising for the album has seen more of a push from the band on its own website, News Corporation’s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace, and through a TV commercial for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store, where a pre-order has been offered with bonus tracks.

Viva la Vida will be released by EMI’s Capitol Records in the United States on June 17.

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Filed under: Products and services, Microsoft (MSFT), Marketing and advertising, Sony Corp ADR (SNE), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Activision Inc (ATVI)

Take-Two Interactive’s (NASDAQ: TTWO) Grand Theft Auto IV game stole the number-one position on the software sales chart for Might, according to data from market research firm NPD. It sold over 1.3 million duplicates last month, and it has moved over 4 million since it hit the street. I figured Take-Two would be taking the top slot here, but the massive question on my mind pertained to how Nintendo’s (OTC: NTDOY) Wii system would do in Might. After all, the fad has to wear out at some point, right? At some magical juncture, either Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3 or Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 will displace the Wii and become the top-selling system of the month.

Well, that hasn’t happened yet. The Wii sold the most, moving 675,000 systems. That was more than three times the amount of consoles sold by PlayStation 3. And as for the Xbox 360, that came in dead last, moving only 187,000 units. All told, total video-game sales, including hardware and games, increased 37% year-over-year. Yep, video games are still hot.

I’m going to predict that the Wii Fit will be the top-selling game package for the month of June. This thing is flying off the shelves in my area, even at $90 (apparently, high fuel costs aren’t hurting Nintendo’s clientele). Does that mean that Nintendo might make for a good short-term trade? Maybe, but I’d prefer buying it safely below $60 per share. As of this writing, it’s trading well above $60 per share. I continue to hold Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) as my play on video games, and will be keeping Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) in the back of my mind as August approaches, since that’ll be when the new Madden game arrives in stores. Not sure if that’s worthy of a trade yet.

Disclosure: I own Activision; positions can change at any time.

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