GameStop to Discontinue Sales of Microsoft's Zune

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 23, 2008 - 9:18am.

San Francisco - GameStop (NYSE: GME), the nation's largest video game retail chain, has decided to discontinue sales of Microsoft's (NASD: MSFT) Zune portable media player due to lack of demand, TheStreet.com reported.

"We have decided to exit the Zune category because it just did not have the appeal we had anticipated," a GameStop spokesperson told TheStreet.com. "It (also) did not fit with our product mix."

The company will continue to sell its remaining Zune inventory on its website.

Microsoft has so far sold about 2 million Zunes since the device debuted in November 2006. The Zune currently accounts for around 4% of the MP3 player market.

"We have a set of great partnerships that give Zune a strong presence at retail including Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others," Adam Sohn, director of marketing for Zune, told TheStreet.com.

"We will continue to invest in retail partnerships and have seen good momentum online and at retail over the last few months."