Zune — $249.99 On Nov. 14

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.

Comments

Not buying it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless. Same amount of space as an iPod. Lame.

FM...

[Kaenneth]

Everyone should have a battery powered radio receiver. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Flooding, Volcanos (like Mt. St. Helens) happen, and you need a way to receive emergency information about which way to run.

Re:FM...

[michrech]

Fuck running, i'm stealing a Hummer H1 with a radio and killing 2 birds with one stone (and anyone who won't move out of my way)!

What happens 6 miles down the road after you run out of fuel? :)

Re:FM...

[ruiner13]

"What happens 6 miles down the road after you run out of fuel?"

That's still 5.5 more miles than I would have gotten running!

Re:FM...

[Grishnakh]

Seriously, what's the deal with people hating FM radio? I spend my whole day at work listening to BBC Radio 1. Sure, their daytime playlist is quite limited, but they do play some new music in the evenings, but I mainly tune in for the DJs.

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.

Sweet

[RetlawST]

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

Re:Sweet

[ackthpt]

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

• a color LED projector so we can watch videos on a sheet of paper, wall, etc.
• a Swiss Army knife built in
• a turnip twaddler built in
• a keyboard
• automated blood sugar/caffeine/cholesterol/heart-rate monitor
• a weight of 2 lbs, including (non-exploding) battery
• a wasabi dispenser

Actaully... naw... well, maybe...

Great advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

Song downloads just under 99 cents? Would that make them 98 cents?

I predict a flood of switchers.

ho hum

[spirit_fingers]

I can't believe what a turkey the Zune is. Here are 2 reasons right off the bat:

- 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?

What are we, retarded?

[voice_of_all_reason]

but in the US a point is currently 1.25 cents

Um, yeah. I'm not buying into some funky dirka-dirka currency that can fluctuate at the company's sheer will.

For the young slashdot whipper snappers

[Jesterboy]

A bit of Slashdot antiquity.

Who want s a dollar?

[PHanT0]

I won't pay 99 for a DRM-riddled piece of music... I will pay a full dollar for a DRM-free piece of music though.

Re:Monday Morning Quarterbacking

[gEvil (beta)]

It's a mute point anyways, since what he said is, for all intensive purposes, correct. It's a doggy dog world out there, so they might as well keep the price low.