Examiner.com reports if recent reports are to be believed, it looks like Xbox will soon be getting a new feature. Music streaming. It’s been coming for some time now, with a recent announcement officially being made regarding a partnership of some type between Microsoft and Last.fm’s online streaming radio service. But unlike the Last.fm feature, which at the moment is estimated to begin sometime around the end of the year, there is new word of a peer-to-peer streaming system similar to the European based Spotify network on the drawing board.
Excerpts from the story: Now all of this chatter is on a much more Microsoft level at this point, as opposed to a specific Xbox level, but there really is no reason to separate the two. Sure Microsoft has many other products, but the Xbox is far from a bastard child. If gamers take into account the recent adjustment being made in regard to the Silverlight program and its integration into Xbox LIVE, streaming content is all but a given. And what more desired streaming content could there be other than music! Xboxers can already watch streaming videos through Netflix, so it’s only a matter of course that they will get music as well.
Officially Microsoft is still looking at how it wants to approach this new feature, but some estimates are placing its arrival on the Xbox by the end of the month. Seems pretty quick, but the infrastructure is already there and it really wouldn’t take too much to implement the feature, particularly with Silverlight as a backbone.
It’s much more likely that Microsoft is looking at how they want to charge and pay for this feature as opposed to how they would get the new media to Xboxers. Unlike the Last.fm deal, word is that Microsoft wants to control the peer-to-peer project as an in-house content system. If they take Spotify as a working model, Xbox users could be looking at free music, but with commercials. Or perhaps downloaders will have an option of selecting an ad-free system at a monthly premium. Microsoft is still looking at the options.
