Feel The Groove: Microsoft Rebrands Music Service For Windows 10

Today, Microsoft announced that what once was Xbox Music is now going to be rebranded as Groove. This service will be the music app that is pre-installed on Windows 10 devices. For many, this is a welcomed change because Xbox is no longer seen as a broad entertainment brand, while many others see the change as just another attempt for Microsoft to make in-roads with music and be seen as one of the cool kids alongside Apple Music & Google Play.

There’s a couple of interesting things about this name. For one, people who use Microsoft Office recognize the name Groove as an Office app that was used for collaboration. Secondly, many note that there’s already a music app available called Groove. Microsoft hasn’t addressed if the other Groove music app will remain (through some negotiation) or become no longer available.

Microsoft describes some of the key aspects of the new Groove service this way:

The Look and Feel: Groove provides an improved experience for listening to and managing your music in Windows 10. Getting into music is faster than ever with easy-to-use menus and navigation controls that work well with both mouse/keyboard, and with familiar touch gestures on touch-screen devices. Pinch to zoom in or out of different views, drag your favorite tracks in to playlists, hover over the Taskbar icon for playback controls, or right click for contextual menus to pin an album to your Start menu. And you can also infuse your personality in to Groove – choose a light or dark theme for the app depending on your mood, or pick an accent color in Windows Settings and the Groove app makes it shine.

Accessing Your Music on your favorite devices: We’re also making it easy to access your content across your favorite devices – with built-in OneDrive integration making your favorite songs only a few clicks away. Upload all your MP3’s to OneDrive, even songs purchased from iTunes, and access them all for free with the Groove app on your Windows devices, Xbox, the web — and even on your Android phones and iPhones (coming soon).

Music and the Windows Store: You can also sign up for a Groove Music Pass subscription – a premium ad-free listening experience with no interruptions. $9.99/month or $99/year gets you complete access to stream and download music from the Windows Store —  one of the largest music catalogs on the planet with over 40 million tracks*. Subscribers can also create custom radio stations based on their favorite songs, albums and artists. If you already have an Xbox Music Pass (like me) – don’t worry! This will become Groove Music Pass and you don’t need to do anything.

The thing to note here is that the way you currently use Xbox Music & Xbox Music Pass doesn’t change. You’ll just see the Groove name where Xbox Music used to be. Xbox Video, for its part, will simply be called “Movies & TV”. With this change, Xbox can go back to being the brand for gamers on all Windows 10 devices. That includes their revamped efforts into the PC gamer arena.

For more information on Groove, you can check out their website.

Source: Windows Blog