Don't Believe Those Stories About "Xbox Music" Service

[vansau]

Don't Believe Those Stories About "Xbox Music" Service

Sorry, folks, the Zune Marketplace isn't turning into "Xbox Music." In fact, there's no such service as "Xbox Music."

Earlier today, stories began circulating about how Microsoft was planning to launch a new music service for the Xbox 360 later this year. The service was dubbed "Xbox Music" and was supposedly announced at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference by CEO Steve Ballmer. Speculation immediately led a lot of folks to suppose that this was the eventual fate of the Zune Marketplace. Now, it turns out that this was actually all due to an error in the article that covered the conference.

Up until now, Microsoft hasn't been willing to comment on the future of the Zune Marketplace, but- since this story was erroneous- it had no problem issuing a statement:

"Reports that Microsoft is launching a new music service on Xbox this fall are inaccurate. A recent demonstration of upcoming Xbox features showcased what we will deliver later this fall on Xbox, including voice search with Bing on Xbox to locate and access entertainment content on the console. This includes Zune music which has a catalog of more than 11 million tracks."

The original story was posted over at Business Insider, which has since printed the following correction:

An earlier version of this story mistakenly said that Microsoft is launching a new music service called Xbox Music this fall. This is wrong. Users (in some geographies) can already access 11 million songs on the Zune Marketplace via Xbox Live, and this service is not changing. What's coming this fall is voice commands through Kinect, and the way to get that music is to say "Xbox. Music." So that's the command, not a new name service.

So, once again, the future of Zune Marketplace is firmly relegated to the realm of rumors, uncertainty, and guesswork.

Source: Joystiq

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[Kyle 2175]

Voice commands through kinect?

Why not just voice commands through a friggin headset? Why does a person need kinect.

Because headsets don't have the necessary "huge waste of money(tm)" label on them from Microsoft.

/sarcasm

To be serious though this is because Microsoft makes money from people buying Kinect. Thing is that Microsoft doesn't make any money from third party headsets and don't make money from their own headsets either since they come with the Xbox, unless someone needs a replacement headset and buys a new offical headset. Kinect on the other hand costs, what, over £100? Microsoft definitely make money from that.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Voice commands through kinect?

Why not just voice commands through a friggin headset? Why does a person need kinect.

Just as one example, you have to go find a headset and put it on, and who wants to sit and watch a movie with a headset on? You could just issue voice commands to your Kinect and go about your business.

Me personally, I'd just use the remote.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Voice commands through kinect?

Why not just voice commands through a friggin headset? Why does a person need kinect.

Just as one example, you have to go find a headset and put it on, and who wants to sit and watch a movie with a headset on? You could just issue voice commands to your Kinect and go about your business.

Me personally, I'd just use the remote.

Feh. I'd rather just use the remote as well. Call me when they come out with Minority Report-style interfaces, then I'll think about getting the Kinect.

Actually, I would probably buy anything that had a MR interface. Still waiting for it along with the rocket cars and killer robots that the future has promised me.

 

[AbstractStream]

I'm content with the Zune Marketplace (I bet I might be the only one). Not much to hate upon, so I'm glad this was a mistake.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Voice commands through kinect?

Why not just voice commands through a friggin headset? Why does a person need kinect.

Just as one example, you have to go find a headset and put it on, and who wants to sit and watch a movie with a headset on? You could just issue voice commands to your Kinect and go about your business.

Me personally, I'd just use the remote.

Yeah but it's about voice commands it's about search functionality, finding songs or other media on a huge database presumably with voice commands. I admit I may not know everything about XBL but I feel that finding stuff on there as it is, is a huge pain in the ass like DLC for my favourite games and so forth. Sometimes I have to scroll past 50+ individual songs for some stupid rock band game or whatnot.

I don't know if there's a FIND STUFF FOR MY GAMES option but there sure as hell should be.


Point being though if they say "10 million songs", finding something by just saying "david bowie space oddity" into a headset would work a lot easier than going to S or B and scrolling down 50 pages.

Oh, agreed. But I think they're also going for a bit of a "hey, neato" factor by letting soccer moms - who would, I guarantee you, find a headset baffling and/or offputting - just talk into the air to find things on the 360. It's all space agey .