Zune — $249.99 On Nov. 14
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Sep 28, 2006 04:02 PM
from the no-price-war-on-songs dept.
from the no-price-war-on-songs dept.
Cubricon writes, "As expected, Microsoft has dropped their price on the Zune in response to Apple's recent iPod updates. Ars Technica has an article that discusses the Zune's use of Microsoft's prepaid 'points' system for songs. Will the masses notice the difference between an iPod and a Zune? Will they want the FM and wireless capabilities?" The Zune lists for $0.99 more than the comparable iPod and songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.
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Why Microsoft's Zune Scares Apple to the Core 574 comments
BoredStiff writes "Computerworld has an article examining Microsoft's plans to launch a competitor to the Apple iPod, the wireless media player called Zune. The article lists five reasons why Apple may fear the Zune, and why it won't be as easily smacked down as the dozens of mp3 players before it have been. The Zune isn't just a music player, the article argues. Think of it as a portable, wireless, hardware version of MySpace. With the Zune, Microsoft is trying to launch a consumer media 'perfect storm.'" From the article: "Microsoft will make the movement of media between Windows, Soapbox and the Zune natural and seamless. The Zune interface is just like a miniature version of the Windows Media Center user interface and is very similar to some elements of Vista. Apple fans are overconfident in the iPod because Apple once commanded 92% of music player market share, a number that has since fallen to around 70%. About 30 million people own iPods. But Microsoft owns more than 90% of the worldwide operating systems market (compared with Apple's roughly 5%), representing some 300 million people. The company expects to have 200 million Vista users within two years."
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Not buying it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Friday April 01 2005, @07:41PM)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Funny)
(http://joe-baldwin.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 02 2006, @11:58AM)
Talk about hindsight being 20/20...
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 21 2002, @04:37PM)
For the young slashdot whipper snappers (Score:5, Informative)
The Fatal Flaw, that will kill zune (Score:5, Insightful)
For famliles it may be unattractive.
As I understand the Zune sales model, if you buy a song it's locked to play only on your computer and your Zune is also locked to your computer.
The problem is then families that have multiple computers or multiple zunes. If both sis and bro and mom like the latest snoop-dog tune, they can't buy it once and share it o all their computer's and Zunes. They have to buy one copy per machine/zune. That's freakin' nuts.
Or did I get it wrong. Sorry if I did, since Im itunes for the long haul and don't really care about Zune.
FM... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://portal2portal.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 04, @08:46PM)
Busses are on the way (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, hearing rhetoric, empty promises and outright lies live over the air while you're up to you ears in alligators would be a heckuva plus.
Re:FM... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.nojailforpot.com/)
Yes, but FM? I think AM will be more useful.
Re:FM... (Score:5, Funny)
What happens 6 miles down the road after you run out of fuel?
Re:FM... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.exacttarget.com/)
That's still 5.5 more miles than I would have gotten running!
Re:FM... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/)
Re:FM... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://integramod.tripod.com/)
You're obviously not an American, and haven't listened to FM radio much in America if you've ever visited here.
Let me educate you a little. Here in America, where we talk a lot about businesses and competition and capitalism, we're actually not much different from the Soviets: all the FM radio stations in the country, except for those playing NPR (National Public Radio--like an extremely watered-down BBC), are owned by a single company: ClearChannel. This company decides what we all listen to, and plays the exact same thing on every station across the country. So they'll have a couple of country music stations, a rock station, etc., in each metro area, but it's playing the same crap that every other station of that format is playing, whether you're in Florida or California or North Dakota. Even worse, each station only plays about 10 songs, in a continuous loop; the only time you'll hear something new is when ClearChannel is working with the RIAA to brainwash us into buying some new album, and they have to update their loop with the one song they'll ever play on that album. Lastly, while a lot of your media is controlled by the BBC, it seems to actually care about producing quality media, or at least trying to. BBC News is world-renowned for being one of the best news outlets (you'll never find that reputation among any American news sources). Here, there's no such pursuit of quality at all. You can forget about any good DJs on the radio, since the DJs don't decide which songs to play anyway (that's decided by the upper management).
As for Sirius and XM, I'm surprised ClearChannel hasn't lobbied our politicians to make that stuff illegal.
Radios in general (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm paying several hundred dollars for a portable player, it should damn well have an FM *AND* AM tuner in it.
Simple as that. Until then, the CD/MP3 player that cost me $50 3 years ago will do just fine.
Re:FM... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, relying on Zune for emergency signal is silly (and I'm being nice) since it has a short battery life and no AM/SW bands. Also, what will you listen to after 5hrs have passed?!
If you want an emergency radio, get one with three bands and get one that has a hand crank.
Sweet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dragonswest.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @07:35PM)
As an Apple user, I'm all for this. A REAL competitor in the mp3 player market means that Apple has to "innovate" something cooler in order to stay on the top. I'd like to see a wide-screen iPod by the end of the year. :D
Yeah, that's what we'll likely see, pointless innovation for the sake of innovation, the next gen will probably have
Actaully... naw... well, maybe...
Zune vs Wii (Score:3, Insightful)
Monday Morning Quarterbacking (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.loscreepers.net/)
Re:Monday Morning Quarterbacking (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that supposed to be "might as well"? Or is there some kind of joke that I'm missing?
Re:Monday Morning Quarterbacking (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.lunaticleft.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 21 2006, @02:26PM)
Re:Monday Morning Quarterbacking (Score:5, Funny)
(http://evil.google.com/)
Next MP3... (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.dragonswest.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @07:35PM)
Next MP3 player won't be one of these, I'll get something cheep, like that little jobby that works with a USB drive, which i can then plug into the new generation of car stereos with USB. Hoo Hah!
MTP vs UMS (Score:5, Interesting)
Read between the lines of this MS developer's [anythingbutipod.com] post, in which he says "PlaysForSure does not require devices to support only MTP - UMS can be implemented too, but under certain conditions that prevent newbies from transferring content via MTP, switching to UMS and then calling tech support because they can't find/play their content"...
Now re-read that sentence while pondering the notion that Zune will not support PlaysForSure.
This is a Microsoft product. More so than Apple products, less so than Sony products, it's still all about vendor lock-in.
I speculate that Zune will be an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol [wikipedia.org])-only device. UMS (USB Mass Storage [wikipedia.org]) cannot be supported, because only by eliminating UMS can Microsoft mandate the use of WMP10/11 and the accompanying XP/Vista DRM platform.
Great advantage (Score:5, Funny)
I predict a flood of switchers.
Re:Walmart.com offers its songs for 88 cents (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday May 03 2007, @11:34AM)
Look at it this way. Even though MS controls the desktop, controls IE, and forces everyone to MSN, MSN is still not a real player in any market. They cannot win the the market on quality, or even controlling the software. So the hope is to take another page out of the Apple book and try make inroads into the music business by controlling the software and hardware, and locking consumers into the format.
I have a feeling that the lack of play for sure support is going to be a detriment, as those same people that buy the player form wal mart are going to want to download songs from wal mart, or whoever. Also, at some point MS is going to want to raise the subscription fee, and at that point owning a Zune will be more expensive than owning another device. Recall that one thing that makes a non-iPod device desirable is the play for sure market is somewhat completive, while the iTunes and alleged MS Music market is not.
As always MS makes the entire thing way too complex, and so will only appeal to those that want the MS name. Otherwise a Zen will be a better choice, unless MS is going to start giving music away, say a free three month subscription with purchase.
Not perfect enough yet... (Score:1)
I won't buy a Zune because of the way it looks.
Whichever one improves first will most likely be the one I'll get.
What about the shitty brown color scheme ? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.javalobby.org)
Re:What about the shitty brown color scheme ? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.microcar.org/)
"U2" was already taken
Fuzzy Math? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://forechecker.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 07, @08:16PM)
Re:Fuzzy Math? (Score:4, Informative)
Because songs aren't bought using money. You use money to buy Microsoft Points, or something with a similarly retarded name, and then use those points to buy songs. The current price is a buck for 80 points, and songs cost 79 points. So each point costs 1.25 cents, and 79 points works out to 98.75 cents. Due to rounding, if you buy 1 or 2 songs you pay the same as in ITMS, and past that you pay a very small amount less (if you buy 100 songs you save a whole quarter).
That reminds me. . . (Score:1, Redundant)
(http://www.de-chant.com/tim | Last Journal: Wednesday November 10 2004, @05:40PM)
the microsoft way (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday September 09, @10:43PM)
At first...
Lots of work to do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Planned obsolescence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Planned obsolescence (Score:4, Insightful)
DOA (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hey, let's offer a player two months from now at the same price as Apple is already selling the iPod at today. Also, let's make sure that our new, unproven propriatary music DRM is completely incompatible with our previous propritary music DRM! That way we get to drive away consumers fearful of unknown technology and piss off our existing music partners to boot!"
Dead on Arrival.
Crow T. Trollbot
ho hum (Score:5, Insightful)
- It only lets you share one song at a time via wi-fi and then only with another Zune player. What's more, even if the song is not DRM'd, it infects that song with DRM so that the recipient can only play the song a maximum of 3 times or for a maximum of 3 days, whichever comes first. So much for Microsoft's wonderful social networking scheme.
- It can't play songs you've already downloaded encoded with Microsoft's own Play For Sure DRM. Dumb. Just plain dumb.
And if including an FM tuner didn't get people to flock to Creative's Zen video pod, why should it be such a hot feature in the Zune? And who the frack thought brown was cool?
Zune is like... (Score:2, Insightful)
iPod haters were already saying that the market was saturated with iPods and Apple's time was over...so how is Zune going to fare any better? You can't have it both ways. Zune is simply not a compelling product...especially when the iPod is still "hip".
Whether intentional or not, I think it was BRILLIANT that Apple did not release the true video iPod at this last event. The fact that it wasn't released will have many holding off on buying a Zune. Especially with the mystery surrounding the iTV and how the forthcoming iPod will interact with it. If the Zune was really that great, they wouldn't have had to adjust the price. This clearly demonstrates Apple's influence in the marketplace...even over MS.
Zune for $249.99? (Score:2)
(http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/)
the Zune is $249.99. The iPod is $249.00, with $0.99 left over to buy a song with.
Re:Zune for $249.99? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Sunday February 27 2005, @06:01PM)
Ahh, but you'll make than up after you buy your 397th song from the Zune Store.
249.99+397*0.9875=642.0275 (Zune)
249.00+397*0.9900=642.0300
What are we, retarded? (Score:5, Interesting)
Um, yeah. I'm not buying into some funky dirka-dirka currency that can fluctuate at the company's sheer will.
Article is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.ashdreams.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 17 2003, @01:31AM)
But there are a few key differences [from the iPod]: Microsoft plans to use the same transaction system as Xbox Live, its video game console's online service, which will allow consumers to pay for music using prepaid cards they can buy in retail stores -- saving some the hassle of needing to use a credit card.
I can walk into Walmart and buy a prepaid iTunes card with cash. The only I ever "bought" from iTunes was with a code from Pepsi. So please playmag.com, tell me how iTunes requires a credit card again? iTunes already has an allowance system too.
Can't wait for this to be verbed (Score:5, Funny)