In retail archaeology, it’s exciting when an excavation turns up a new type of artifact that has never been studied before. Reader Paris is one of Consumerist’s Raiders of the Lost Walmart, the brave explorers who hunt down retail antiquities in the world’s big-box stores. He found something that we had never seen before: another variety of decade-old MP3 player with a comically high price tag and free downloads from the Walmart MusicStore, which shut down in 2008.
Just like our favorite ancient MP3 player, the MobiBLU, the Siren was probably released around 2006. Both came out when Walmart was trying to promote its own MP3 download store. Back in late 2008, the store shut down, deactivating the digital rights management on the song files. Few music fans seem to miss the store very much, but it does provide a handy way to tell which devices have been sitting on the shelf for far too long.
How long? Well, this player has been on clearance since 2009. Perhaps it’s time to admit that it needs to be marked down a little bit.
Just a bit.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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