Zune - The MS "iPod Killer"

ChemicalWarrior · 07-22-2006, 03:45 AM

http://chemicalhardware.com/rumors.html

Any thoughts? From the Daily Tech article it sounds mighty interesting. I also sorta like the looks. I like the layout of the buttons but I think a non brushed look would work better.

{OF}Blong · 07-22-2006, 07:35 AM

I bet it will be like any other mircrocrap product in that it wont be able to play 90% of the codec formats out there.

Harbinger · 07-22-2006, 08:26 AM

All I can say is their marketing better be the best MS has ever done. The general population does not consider Microsoft "cool" . Yes, I know a lot of people here don't like the iPod but we're hardly what I would call the average consumer.

Apple has a huge head start on this and you better believe they saw this coming.

The Xbox team is doing the marketing for this and I believe they were in the development of the Zune so it may stand a chance.

Zune??, Wii?? Must be the year for stupid names for consumer electronics.

I hope the Zune is good, it'll be great to have some competition in the market space for digital music players.

If it plays DRM'd WMA files and has no support for AAC it'll be dead coming out the gate.

All the features listed in the article are rumored to be in the next gen iPod.

Oh this is going to be fun to watch! Then again MS hyped up Oragami and well....

LoPo · 07-22-2006, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by {OF}Blong

I bet it will be like any other mircrocrap product in that it wont be able to play 90% of the codec formats out there.

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LoPo · 07-22-2006, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harbinger

All I can say is their marketing better be the best MS has ever done. The general population does not consider Microsoft "cool" . Yes, I know a lot of people here don't like the iPod but we're hardly what I would call the average consumer.

Some would argue this would be a similar situtation as the xbox vs. Playstation dealio....

You never know.

Harbinger · 07-22-2006, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoPo

Some would argue this would be a similar situtation as the xbox vs. Playstation dealio....

You never know.

Yep, that's why I pointed out that it was the Xbox team working on this. The Xbox has managed to distance itself from the parent corp and most people just think of it as the Xbox.

ChemicalWarrior · 07-22-2006, 01:13 PM

Harb what makes you think that it has to support AAC? Codec support doesnt seem to be that big of a deal in this market, take a loook at the iPod for example.

The fact is that all MS has to do is have a good marketing department. Apple has proved the general market does not want features.

Harbinger · 07-22-2006, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChemicalWarrior

Harb what makes you think that it has to support AAC? Codec support doesnt seem to be that big of a deal in this market, take a loook at the iPod for example.

The fact is that all MS has to do is have a good marketing department. Apple has proved the general market does not want features.

It's simple Chem. If they want to pull people away from the iPod they will need to support AAC. Many iPod users shop at the iTunes Music Store and guess what format the ITMS uses? I'll give you one guess. People are not going to want to (or know how) convert all their legally purchased iTunes music.

Cheese · 07-22-2006, 02:39 PM

how many other players are out there? a **** ton...how many ipods do you see vs the others? a **** ton more. i dont think MS has a chance, just like no one else has one. to someone that actually researches them and compares they might sell some to. but most people buy ipods because they're trendy and the cool thing to have. it's going to be near impossible for anyone to come in and just take the market away from ipod.

this is different than the PS2 vs Xbox thing simply because not everyone had a ps2 at the time. both started on relatively equal grounds. sure the ps2 came out a year earlier, but it was expensive and xbox matches ps2s price when it came out, so they were pretty evenly matched imo.

i dont really understand what more a company can do to improve on an mp3 player. just hold more mp3s i guess, but i can't fill up the mp3 players now, so i could are less about more storage space. though i dont have an mp3 player now anyway, so i dont know what im talking about, lol

ChemicalWarrior · 07-22-2006, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harbinger

It's simple Chem. If they want to pull people away from the iPod they will need to support AAC. Many iPod users shop at the iTunes Music Store and guess what format the ITMS uses? I'll give you one guess. People are not going to want to (or know how) convert all their legally purchased iTunes music.

Not exactly.

MS could offer a converting software, people would use it. They could offer a package like get all of your music you had through iTunes for free through the MS store.

I think it would be better for MS to not support it for the simple fact that MS wants to make the money back through the sell of music on their own stores. They could offer a conversion package but once the transistion is over people would just move to the MS store.