Fan hysteria and huge sales? That'll be the gaming industry.

Last week's Grand Theft Auto IV release is a reminder of what the music industry is currently missing

There were midnight openings, queues around the block and predictions of 6m sales in its first week of release globally.

All this, of course, does not relate to a music release but the phenomenon that is Grand Theft Auto IV, which last week attracted the kind of media coverage that money cannot buy and a consumer reaction that was once not untypical of the arrival of a big new album.

In many ways it was reminiscent of the days of, say, Oasis's Be Here Now, an album which, although in hindsight hardly a masterpiece, was such an event record you felt obliged to buy a copy.

Sadly, such a similar response to a new album is all too rare in these days when, while an acclaimed act's new offering still warrants certain interest, it typically fails to live up to the feeling of being "an event" in the way such releases were regarded in the past.

Although the response to Grand Theft Auto IV is unusual even by the standards of the still-ascending games industry, it does offer food for thought as to why a game can generate the kind of excitement that an equivalent music release no longer can.

This is especially so among a generation who would not dream of spending a tenner or less on a new album, but do not seem to have any qualms about shelling out 40 quid for a game. And for the special edition, make that #65.