World’s largest software maker Microsoft corp has today announced its XBOX music gambit, a digital music service to compete with Amazon’s cloud player and Apples’s iTunes and will also challenge European music service Spotify. This new service will comprise of 30 million songs library, which is more than Apple’s iTunes music library of over 26 million songs. It will also include 70,000 music videos, and will be availabe for its Xbox game consoles on Oct 16.
Xbox music will be arriving on Windows software powered computers and the upcoming Windows Surface tablet, from October 26, when Windows 8 will be launched by Microsoft. Saddly, the new service will not be avaliable on Windows 7 Smartphones now but it will be expanded to smartphones shortly after the launch of Windows 8.
Xbox Music general manager Jerry Johnson said “About 18 months ago, we realized that Xbox users were spending half to 60 percent of their time on entertainment services rather than video gaming”.
Xbox, which is a market leader in video gaming console already streams Netflix videos and other sports and entertainment channels and with this launch Microsoft is going to strenghten its leadership with music and video content.
Xblox Music will be replacing Microsoft’s digital media service Zune that failed to challenge European music service Spotify and Appls’s iTunes. Back in June, Microsoft professional Alex Wilhelm noted that Xbox Music was likely to be a reciprocate of Zune:
What Microsoft has put together with its Xbox Music project is a new version of Zune with a different name. It’s a shame to see Zune die, but it appears that we are getting the good parts of the brand, plus upgrades, just under a different guise.
Microsoft corp is also planning to take its new service to Android OS powered gadgets and Apple iOS next year.
Microsoft is going to offer a free ad-supported music streaming service, and a premium $9.99 paid subscription for unlimited ad-free streaming.
