News Bits: Microsoft Hits Accelerator With Zune

Written by Steve Donohue

Wednesday, May 27. 2009 at 11:55 AM EDT 1 comment

Digg   Del.icio.us   Reddit   Email This

no ratings

• Login to Rate

Raising the stakes in its battle with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is expanding its Zune portable media player to its Xbox Live platform and will launch a new Zune HD player this fall.

Exposing the Zune brand to owners of its Xbox 360 gaming console, Microsoft said Zune will be a premium partner in its Xbox Live video marketplace and will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface. The software giant will take the wraps off of the Zune integration next week at the E3 confab in Los Angeles and launch it commercially this fall.

Microsoft charges prices ranging from $99 for the Zune 4, which can store 1,000 songs and 12 hours of video, to $249.99 for the Zune 120, which can hold 30,000 songs or 375 hours of video. It didn't release pricing for the Zune HD, which will debut this fall.

Have you ever wanted to listen to the radio on an MP3 player? Microsoft says the Zune HD will contain an HD radio receiver capable of picking up the feeds from local radio stations, in addition to song and artist data.

The Zune HD, which will compete with Apple's iPod Touch devices, will also contain an HD output that will allow users to connect it to an HDTV.

Featuring an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch sceen measuring 480 by 272 pixels, the new Zune will also have a WiFi receiver. But will it ever have a phone?

Also in the news: