There’s been a lot of rumblings amongst Windows Phone users, about the features that would come to the platform, in what part of the world. Many of the services available have been limited by region, [former link shows regional availability], and those limitations have been the bane of Windows Phone users outside the UK and US. One of the things that made the iPhone such a great success was the inclusion of iTunes, the one stop shop for media of all sorts, and applications. Zune as a native inclusion in the Windows Phone platform, holds some of that promise for users of the OS. It has been vague though, how the market would expand, Well it looks like that is starting to happen, or at least being tested.
All of a sudden there is a selection of podcasts and fairly mundane music available on the Zune marketplace in Australia. I caught a couple of hints of this over the weekend, but being used to their not really being many features in Zune Desktop being functional, didn’t think much more of it when some more music appeared. Confirmed today though, by an anonymous commenter on his blog, @longzheng
Since this is believed to be just a test, unfortunately it’s just a small and unusual collection of songs. Nevertheless, the test does reveal the pricing for songs and albums Microsoft may have settled on, with beloved Microsoft Points no less. Songs costs 129 Points (AUD$2.13) and albums appear to be priced per song capped at 1299 Points (AUD$21.43).
I don’t know how long this will last and there is no official news that all Zune services will be arriving down under, especially the coveted Zune Pass subscription feature. At the moment the service is ruled buy Microsoft Points, which is a complicated way of purchasing credits that you can use to redeem music from the Market Place. The prices seem to compare to the iTunes store, as yet though it’s too many steps for most people.
This is only working for the Zune Desktop Client 4.8 Beta, and the Mango beta for Windows Phone. What is important is that Microsoft seem to have twigged to the fact that they have to support the major markets where the OS is making inroads, and enough of an inroad that Microsoft is urgently trying to roll out features that as yet have been limited. When this rolls out to all users, it will bring an even greater demonstrable parity to the platform, and win over more users. Good move Microsoft, but maybe announce milestones like this!
