Yes, Xbox Music is still a thing, or at least was. Microsoft is rebranding its cloud/streaming music service to Groove as part of its Windows 10 software launch. “Groove describes what people feel and do with music, and is more intuitive for our Windows 10 customers on what they’ll find with the app,” explained the company in a blog post yesterday.
That includes a redesigned user interface for touchscreen devices and desktop computers alike, and integration of Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud-storage service for accessing music across devices – “even songs purchased from iTunes”. The subscription element of Xbox Music – Xbox Music Pass – is being renamed as Groove Music Pass, and will still cost $9.99 a month for unlimited access to Microsoft’s streaming catalogue. For now, creating “custom radio stations” based on songs, albums and artists will also be a subscription feature: no free radio-style tier like rivals for Microsoft. Xbox Music was unveiled in 2012 (Bulletin, 5-Jun-12) but with no public figures since then, its popularity is in question.
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