Playboy Magazine releases every issue from 1953 to 2010 on a hard drive

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Playboy Magazine is on magazine racks, on the Web, on iPad, and now it’s also on a hard drive.

The iconic publication, which has struggled a bit as the world goes increasingly digital, is offering every issue of Playboy, from 1953 to 2010, on a 250-GB drive described as small enough to fit ‘inside a briefcase or jacket pocket.’

‘Why would you let more than 650 of your favorite Playmates celebrate the holidays in a damp garage, stashed under your bed or crowded together in the basement, when you can bring them all together beneath the mistletoe this year?’ Playboy said in a statement.

The USB hard drive sells for about $300 and has more than 650 issues loaded on the device. The hard drive also has 200 GB worth of free space for those looking to save other files alongside the digital archive.

The drive is being released by Playboy and Bondi Digital Publishing, a company that makes the archives of print magazines available in digital formats.

Playboy isn’t the first magazine to release its archive on a portable hard drive. Bondi, which was founded in 2004, has released digital archives of the New Yorker and Rolling Stone magazines.

And last year, a National Geographic hard drive was released with 120 years (from 1888 through 2008) worth of issues for about $200 -- $100 less than Playboy’s asking price for 56 years worth of issues.

The move falls in line with products released as Playboy has seen a decline in sales of its monthly print magazine.

Since 2007, licensing of mostly retro-minded items has been Playboy’s largest profit generator, company spokeswoman Martha Lindeman said in a recent L.A. Times story.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles