NEWS - Wednesday, July 18, 2007
No XBL Music Marketplace Yet
Xbox Live Video marketplace has been confirmed for Europe later this year, but will Microsoft ever branch off in to the third entertainment sector, with an iTunes-like Music Marketplace? According to XBL general manager JJ Richards, Microsoft will be holding off on downloadable tunes for the time being. "Right now we feel like we already have music on the console," he told CVG in a recent interview. "Unlike hi-def video no one has a problem accessing music and it's totally simple to play it through the Xbox 360, with the screensaver or over your games. "It all goes back to the whole rights issue and what you can do and where you can do it. What I would expect to happen is we're going to think about different factors and different ways to get that content to the console. "Right now we feel like we already have music on the console versus not on the console. Unlike hi-def video no one has a problem accessing music and it's totally simple to play it through the Xbox 360, with the screensaver or over your games." Richards says he can see how not having to transfer your music from PC/iPod to console would be a little bit better, but says that you're not prevented from achieving the main objective (getting your drum and base on the dashboard). "The first thing we ask is 'can you do it? Yes or no?' and then we'll work on 'can you do it easier and better?'" Richards sounds on the ball to us. We're already stashing the Microsoft points for Video Marketplace, but we'd probably never download music off of Xbox Live. Bring on hi-def Die Hard! And Grange Hill. And Trapdoor!Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/
