Hasta La Gadget!

If you were one of the unlucky ones to not get the chance to pre-order a fancy Surface tablet from Microsoft, you’re only option is to wait in line at your local Microsoft Store. However, it seems Microsoft is expecting a dim crowd for the launch, so they’re giving the first 100 people in line at every Microsoft Store one year of Xbox Music service.

One year of Xbox Music costs $99, so you’d essentially be getting paid a hundred bucks for waiting in line for a Surface tablet (assuming you’re one of the first 100 people in line). However, that $100 will obviously have to be used for Xbox Music, but it’ll give you the chance to try out the revamped service if you’ve been feeling skeptical about it.

The offer is good at any of the 29 Microsoft Stores across the country, as well as the additional 32 temporary pop-up stores that Microsoft will have on launch day. All you have to do is show up extremely early to the store and just plop down out front until it’s time to buy, and obviously you’ll have to buy a Surface tablet while you’re there — you sadly just can’t take the free Xbox Music and run.

Of course, in order to use the free Xbox Music voucher, you’ll need a Gold subscription to Xbox LIVE, which is $60 a year, but you can usually find them for around $45 at various online retailers and auction sites. However, the generous offer from Microsoft (which will cost the company just over $600,000) should indeed bring a few people to wait in line that were hesitant to do so in the first place.

[via The Verge]

Microsoft giving the first 100 line sitters free Xbox Music for a year is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Your chance to shout voice commands at Engadget is coming today, as Microsoft is rolling out its Fall Dashboard update to the Xbox 360 today, headlined by the inclusion of Internet Explorer. The update also adds a version of its popular “pinning” functionality, a variety of specialized sports apps (NBA, NHL, and Monday Night Football from ESPN), the ability to recommend and rate content, and some UI tweaks across all of the 360 Dashboard’s categories. Xbox Music is also in there, as is SmartGlass support, though the latter won’t have any functionality until October 26, according to Microsoft’s Major Nelson. The update may not come immediately, as it’s being rolled out gradually across various regions. 3 million folks get in this week, while others may not see it until a week or two from now, says Microsoft. We’ve got a full hands-on right here for you to read in the meantime, of course.

Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft

PSA: Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard update rolling out today originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re thinking about working with Xbox Music in the very near future, the first thing you should be thinking about is how it measures up to the competition. With Microsoft’s first iteration of Xbox Music here right before Windows 8 is released, you’ll need Windows 8, an Xbox 360, or a Windows Phone 8 device to use it. Spotify is a service that works on all of these platforms as well as Apple’s devices and Google’s Android, too. The third warrior in iTunes Match works on Apple products and connects directly with iTunes.

With Xbox Music you’ll be working with a massive library of music with labels that’ve agreed with Microsoft to let their audio be streamed. This service works as both a free model and a pay model, with the free model working in an unlimited manner across all your devices with advertisements to pay your way for 6 months. Once your 6 months are up, you’ll be limited to 10 hours a month. These limits are removed entirely if you choose to pay Microsoft $9.99 a month.

Spotify works similarly with a $9.99 a month cost and a free model besides. The free model also works with advertisements to pay your way, but does not work on your mobile device, only your desktop machine. If you pay the $9.99 a month, you get streaming via mobile and no advertisements anywhere – Spotify also has a separate library of music from Microsoft, and Microsoft and Spotify have separate libraries from iTunes as well – lots of licensing going on here.

Apple’s iTunes Match works with your music and costs $24.99 a year. There is no free service with iTunes Match, and it combines the music you’ve purchased via iTunes with 25,000 songs of your choice uploaded by you from your CD collection. These tracks are added to your library at “256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality” unless Apple does not have their own copy beforehand, at which point you’ll have the song at the highest quality you were able to upload it at. This music can be streamed from any of your web-connected Apple devices.

Of course there’s also Google Music which works on Android devices and through any web browser, this being an absolutely free service that allows you to upload your own music as well as purchase music from Google Play. There’s no limit to streaming on any device and no cost to you – advertisements appear on Google Play, of course, but only for Google Play products.

Which one are you going to go for this upcoming Windows 8-heavy season?

Xbox Music vs Spotify vs iTunes Match vs Google Music is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft’s new Xbox Music streaming service will leave many existing device owners – including Windows Phone 7 early-adopters – out in the cold, the company has conceded. The new cloud-based music service, which launches tomorrow for Xbox 360 but will eventually run on Windows Phone 8 handsets and Windows 8/RT PCs and tablets, cuts all ties with the existing version of Microsoft’s smartphone and PC platforms. Meanwhile, the threat of listening limits lurks in the small-print.

Microsoft has no plans to release Xbox Music apps for Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7/7.5/7.8, the company admitted to The Verge, leaving those desktop and mobile platforms with the existing Zune Pass program. That means the same catalog of tracks will be on offer – Microsoft says that amounts to over 30m globally, though not all tracks are available in all countries – but the cloud functionality won’t be present.

For instance, Xbox Music users will be able to create playlists of tracks and have those automatically synchronize across multiple devices logged into the same account, but Zune Pass users won’t get access to the functionality. Similarly, the upcoming “cloud match” service which will put existing music users own into the cloud for them to enjoy on any device will also not be extended to Zune Pass users.

Windows 7 users, meanwhile, will also miss out on the free streaming access that Windows 8/RT users will get. Xbox Music on Windows Phone 8 and Xbox 360 will demand a monthly subscription of $9.99 (on top of Xbox LIVE membership on the console), but Windows 8 users will have a free, ad-supported option instead.

However, that unlimited, ad-supported playback will be short-lived. According to Microsoft’s small-print, after six months of use the option will be limited to just ten hours of playback each month. That’s in contrast to Spotify, the ad-supported plan of which has no such limits.

It’s not the only indignity early-adopters of Windows Phone 7 have had to stomach. Microsoft cut backward compatibility with Windows Phone 8, promising those who bought earlier devices only a visual update to WP7.8 rather than the full, new OS.

Xbox Music flaws surface: Old Windows abandoned plus listening limits is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You could say that the advent of the MP3 format as well as Apple’s slick marketing (coupled with decent hardware, of course) of the iPod certainly fueled the boom of digital music, while signaling the death knell for the cassette Walkman and eventually, CD-toting Discman. Microsoft must have seen Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s Cloud Player to be a viable business to be in, hence they have announced a potential heavyweight in the department, calling their service the Xbox Music which will be available for their Xbox consoles from tomorrow onwards.

The Xbox Music service will be expanded to Windows-powered computers and tablets in due time, including the Windows 8 and Windows RT versions of the upcoming Surface tablet when October 26th rolls around to coincide with the Windows 8 operating system launch. Not only that, smartphones (definitely the ones running on Windows Phone 8) will also be getting the Xbox Music service as well. With Xbox users spending up to 60% of their time on entertainment services on the Xbox 360 console, Microsoft figured out that this is a good time to enter the fray with Xbox Music, which will continue where the ill-fated Zune service failed to take off. Microsoft will make Xbox Music available in 22 countries first, and hopes to deliver the service to iOS and Android-powered devices from 2013 onwards. [Press Release]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Leaked screenshots reveal Xbox Music Pass pricing, Halo 4 leaks, Microsoft targets pirates,