Xbox Music Free (Ad Supported) Shutting Down


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17 members have voted

  1. 1. Do You Use Xbox Music?

    • Yes
      7
    • No
      10
  2. 2. How about Xbox Video?

    • Yes
      6
    • No
      11
  3. 3. If You used Xbox Music, will this change stop you from using it?

    • Yes
      3
    • No
      5
    • N/A
      9


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:no: Sad, sad day for Xbox Music and the loss of any hope for Xbox Music and/or Video.

 

Xbox_Music_Web.jpg?itok=WXyBj8i0

The free Xbox Music streaming you've been enjoying on Windows 8.1 and on the web will be discontinued on December 1st, 2014. This doesn't impact you if you're using the Xbox Music Pass, but those who have been streaming for free won't be able to do so much longer.

Why is the free streaming feature being discontinued? From Microsoft:

"We are focusing Xbox Music to deliver the ultimate music purchase and subscription service experience for our customers. With Xbox Music Pass, you have access to millions of songs on your PC, tablet, Xbox, phone, and the web. Download music for offline listening and create playlists that automatically sync across all your devices."

We've reached out to Microsoft to find out more about the retirement of free streaming.

Source: wpcentral.com, Microsoft.com, http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/windows/free-xbox-music-streaming-retirement-faq

 

 

 

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I've been using it since the zune was originally released so the change won't impact me, but it is sad that they are killing the free streaming. It was a good way to get people to try it out before actually paying for it.

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:no: Sad, sad day for Xbox Music and the loss of any hope for Xbox Music and/or Video.

 

 

 

 

 

ummm, why ? it's probably gettin shut down because very few use it, just like the vast majority of spotify users pay. then again, I also believe the free version of xbox music was US only. 

 

Also the Screen experience is far better on Xbox music than any other service. Spotify doesn't even allow full screen cover art. Xbox music will show music videos for songs that have them, and have panning full screen photos of the artists when there's no video. If I'm playing music in the background when doing something or reading, this is far better, and far party music for those who have parties at home, it's great. 

I've been using it since the zune was originally released so the change won't impact me, but it is sad that they are killing the free streaming. It was a good way to get people to try it out before actually paying for it.

 

You still get one month or 2 weeks of free music pass. 

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ummm, why ? it's probably gettin shut down because very few use it, just like the vast majority of spotify users pay. then again, I also believe the free version of xbox music was US only. 

 

Also the Screen experience is far better on Xbox music than any other service. Spotify doesn't even allow full screen cover art. Xbox music will show music videos for songs that have them, and have panning full screen photos of the artists when there's no video. If I'm playing music in the background when doing something or reading, this is far better, and far party music for those who have parties at home, it's great. 

 

You still get one month or 2 weeks of free music pass. 

That is ok then. I can still recommend it as it has been a great service.

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ummm, why ? it's probably gettin shut down because very few use it, just like the vast majority of spotify users pay. then again, I also believe the free version of xbox music was US only. 

 

Also the Screen experience is far better on Xbox music than any other service. Spotify doesn't even allow full screen cover art. Xbox music will show music videos for songs that have them, and have panning full screen photos of the artists when there's no video. If I'm playing music in the background when doing something or reading, this is far better, and far party music for those who have parties at home, it's great. 

 

You still get one month or 2 weeks of free music pass. 

 

It's called and exaggeration, yet I did stream Xbox Music once and awhile, now I will only use it for my pirated (read: downloaded :P) music.

That is ok then. I can still recommend it as it has been a great service.

While you get one month, after that month goes away you are going to be forced into paying a whopping 10 dollars just for music.

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It's called and exaggeration, yet I did stream Xbox Music once and awhile, now I will only use it for my pirated (read: downloaded :p) music.

While you get one month, after that month goes away you are going to be forced into paying a whopping 10 dollars just for music.

I pay for the year. I have free internet through my work at my college and its not worth the risk to download from less than legal site anymore. I pay about $100 for Xbox Live and Music together with looking for deals online.

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It's called and exaggeration, yet I did stream Xbox Music once and awhile, now I will only use it for my pirated (read: downloaded :p) music.

While you get one month, after that month goes away you are going to be forced into paying a whopping 10 dollars just for music.

A "whopping" $10?  How is that expensive?  I download at least 5-10 albums a month on Xbox music. If I were to do that legally (say through iTunes) that would cost me $100 a month (albums cost $10-15)

Obviously you steal "download" your music so you don't care, but I like the ease of using the music pass vs torrenting (much easier to hear a song when I'm out and about, whip out my phone, have Cortana "listen", and then download the resulting song seconds later)

 

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I pay for the year. I have free internet through my work at my college and its not worth the risk to download from less than legal site anymore. I pay about $100 for Xbox Live and Music together with looking for deals online.

 

 

A "whopping" $10?  How is that expensive?  I download at least 5-10 albums a month on Xbox music. If I were to do that legally (say through iTunes) that would cost me $100 a month (albums cost $10-15)

Obviously you steal "download" your music so you don't care, but I like the ease of using the music pass vs torrenting (much easier to hear a song when I'm out and about, whip out my phone, have Cortana "listen", and then download the resulting song seconds later)

 

First I do not pirate music anymore, and have only done it around 4 times. Secondly, I am NOT recommending in, nor a would I recommend Xbox Music as a streaming service anymore. I have NEVER torrented any music, rater converted youtube to MP4 or something like that. Now I have Pandora, Spotify and others that I use. No need to hold onto a collection. Since WP has free Pandora no ads, I use that the most (never updated the app after the promotion ended).

I will continue to load my music (some from old CDs) into Xbox Music or VLC.

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Microsoft needs to fire its Media team. They can never get anything right.

They still don't have a service outside of a handful of countries and it's been like that forever. I am still waiting for them to launch anything in India. I can't even get paid Xbox music service here.

Their phone apps are still a joke after multiple "performance improvements" and still lack basic features.

 

?\_(?)_/? In what way was this better than Spotify anyway?

It supported Windows Phone (in certain countries) when Spotify didn't.
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Call me frugal, but paying montly for OneDrive/Office 365 + Adobe CC + Data Plan + Netflix + 75 GBps Internet from Xfinity + Cable + Phone + Xbox Live does not leave room for Xbox Music

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?\_(?)_/? In what way was this better than Spotify anyway?

 

As I said before, much better screen presence. And a working radio feature. When you just want to listen to music and not build playlist Xbox music actually does as good if not a better job than Pandora does(/did, since they went US only years ago), while spotifys radio feature is useless, it picks wrists and music from completely different genres, you can radio a soft ballad and it'll play heavy metal.

 

Also, Xbox music is on Xbox, spotify hasn't bothered with an Xbox/universal app yet.

Call me frugal, but paying montly for OneDrive/Office 365 + Adobe CC + Data Plan + Netflix + 75 GBps Internet from Xfinity + Cable + Phone + Xbox Live does not leave room for Xbox Music

 

Music littered with ads isn't music, and however frugal you are for the low cost of these services, they're worth it over hunting for good rips anyway.

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Don't care, for the whole of Xbox Music, not just this. Most of the music I like is not on it anyways.

 

It wouldn't be so bad if their WP app wasn't in such a borked state, and their catalog wasn't so incomplete. I've found it be particularly bad for some older (80s, 90s) music where they'll have 3 or 4 songs from a complete album and that's all they'll show you, even if you actually have all of the songs on your local system or phone.

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