Xbox Music starts streaming tomorrow

The Xbox 360 music streaming service will launch tomorrow on the Xbox 360, then on Windows 8 on October 26. The music service aims to combine the features of various types of services together, and will run across multiple devices. It will boast 30 million songs at the start.

The service will let you listen to streaming music for free, subscribe to unlimited music of your choice for a monthly fee, and buy specific songs a la carte. You could compare these services to Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes, respectively. The Music Pass (similar to Spotify) will cost $9.99 per month. The service is coming to Xbox 360 and Windows 8 first, but is aiming to eventually become an App on Android and iOS as well.

"There are a lot of individual services that do a good job, but today there isn't a service which can pull together the benefits of download-to-own, music subscription, or free streaming services," said Microsoft interactive entertainment business marketing VP Yusuf Mehdi in the announcement. "With Xbox Music, what we wanted to do is bring all of that value in one simple, easy-to-use service, then build some additional value on top - make it really beautiful, and have it work across all of your devices. We’ve been able to simplify the music experience in a really powerful way."