Originally scheduled for release tomorrow (16th November 2011), it seems Microsoft have pulled the trigger early. Users can now signup for a Zune Music Pass. The three options available are 14-day free trial, 12-month subscription for $119.90 and 1 month for $11.99.

The music can be played back on the web, desktop Zune client, WP7 and soon Xbox 360. With access to over 11 million tracks, $12 seems like a pretty good deal. The biggest issue facing Zune is the lack of iPhone and Android support. Naturally Microsoft want Zune Music to drive sales of Windows Phones, but there’s likely to be plenty of people happy with their smart phones that would love to use Zune Pass.

For Windows Phone 7 users, this is the music solution that has been missing from the platform in Australia. Until now, users were forced to obtain music from other services and sync to their device. Zune Pass now makes WP7 a viable solution for music and media lovers.

Update
Looks like you’ll only be able to stream Zune music on one device at a time. It also looks like the free trial turns into $12 per month subscription after 14 days unless you opt out.

Update 2
While Zune Pass is available through the web, Zune desktop software and Xbox, it is still yet to reach Windows Phone devices.

Update 3
Zune just added a special Australian tile in the Zune desktop software to welcome Australians to the social. This confirms what we told you 6 hours ago, Zune Music is now available in Australia.

Update 4
This morning things got official, with the update of the front page at Zune.net/en-au (by the way Microsoft, please register zune.net.au). It seems Microsoft found an extra couple of million tracks in their catalogue, now number 13 million.

More info @ Zune.net/en-au

Microsoft has today unveiled a new voice-recognition update to Xbox using it’s popular Kinect product as well as a new Zune streaming music service.

The voice command implementation Microsoft is releasing in mid-December is no doubt bound to draw much comparison to Apple’s recent introduction of ‘Siri’ a voice based command interface for the iPhone.

Sadly, those who were hoping that they’ll now be able to navigate their way around the Xbox dashboard handsfree may be disappointed, as the commands are currently limited to operation within a handful of Microsoft built applications (primarily the updated Zune Marketplace and games such as Kinect Sports Season Two) and only for a handful of explicit functions.

The new system works quite simply – if you’re watching a movie or listening to music through Zune, you simply say “Xbox” which then triggers an onscreen list of voice-command option. Most basic functionality that you’d expect when watching a video were present, “Pause, Play, Fast-Forward, Stop” and for those who are too indecisive to pick what to watch, there is also a “Pick something for me” option.

The commands worked well with a clear articulate voice in a quiet room, but seemed to struggle as soon as ambient noise or a stumbling accent were introduced. Those with kids running around the home may not want to throw out the remote control quiet yet.

Despite the limitations of the current voice implementation, David McLean – Australian Director of Consumer Channel Group at Microsoft says he’s excited about where the company is taking this technology, and expects to be able to talk more about the exciting developments in voice once Microsoft demonstrates more on it’s upcoming Windows 8 product.

Beyond the new voice-command system, the addition of Music to the Zune content catalogue is a welcome one, although the popularity of a subscription-based music service is yet to be tested in the Australia market. With average broadband speeds slower than in the US, and approximately half of it’s 1.4 million Australian consoles connected to Xbox Live, the new service might not see too much uptake until the NBN begins to penetrate more homes.

In the meantime, at $12 per month with over 11 million tracks in it’s library the Zune Music Subscription service is a pretty good deal if your Xbox sits at the centre of your entertainment system and you’ve the bandwidth to spare.

Those looking to expand their collection of Kinect titles will be pleased to hear that today’s announcement showcased some of the new titles Microsoft are releasing including a surprisingly fun kids titles “Disneyland Adventures”. The most impressive Kinect release was actually Kinect Sports Season Two, which seems to be building on where the first Kinect Sports left off, and using the gestural platform in more advanced ways, whilst still being extremely intuitive to use.

The Zune Marketplace update with voice-commands and subscription service will both be available by mid-december, though you can try out the voice features as of tomorrow with the launch of Kinect Sports Season Two.

Gallery

Microsoft Australia have just announced they have finally got the deal done with music labels to offer Zune Pass in Australia. For just $11.99 per month or $119.99 per year, Australians can enjoy access to over 11 Million tracks. This now becomes serious competition to the iTunes model which still lacks a subscription service.

Naturally the downside of subscription is the music goes away if you stop paying. Until recently, the US version of Zune Pass allowed users to download 10 songs per month to keep. This feature was discontinued and won’t be available in Australia.

Delivering a music purchasing system to Windows Phone 7, solves one of it’s biggest issues. As crazy as it sounds, users were forced to purchase music through another service like iTunes, then sync to their WP7 device. It’s great to see this finally being resolved and the Zune on WP7 becoming a full end-to-end ecosystem.

The Xbox 360 access to the Zune pass is likely to arrive with the new Dashboard to be released soon. If you chose, you will be able to stream your favourite tracks from the Zune collection while playing your favourite game.

Zune Pass Australia arrives November 16th.

It has been years in the making, but the best sign yet that Australian’s will be getting Zune Music was revealed today. Long Zheng post on istartedsomething.com that an anonymous user (WP7 developer) had sent Zune music screenshots with Australian pricing. Since then, I have independently verified this.

It requires you to be a Windows Phone developer with Zune desktop software 4.8, which is only available to developers. Zune 4.8 will ship when Mango does later this year, but is also likely to include the ability for Australians to download music and podcasts.

To be honest, without these two items, its really hard to justify recommending WP7 to friends when the end-to-end solution is really broken. Sure you could still purchase music through iTunes, then import into Zune, but if your investing in a Microsoft solution, having iTunes installed is probably something your trying to avoid.

This brings me to the price of tracks, the news isn’t good. While this service is anything but officially announced and pricing may change, its currently priced at 129 Microsoft Points, or A$2.39. More than its biggest rival iTunes which costs A$2.19 for the same track. Zune’s biggest trump card has always been Zune Pass, the subscription music that’s affordable and hosts an impressive library. I seriously hope this comes to Australia, as someone who likes current music, its incredibly expensive to continue buying the latest tracks. Subscription makes a whole lot of sense.

Podcasts should have been available internationally from day one. There’s no music label deals to be done, so why Zune ever shipped without podcast support in Australia is a mystery. Zune 4.8 looks to remedy this. About time. 

More @ iStartedSomething

After Microsoft Australia posted on Facebook yesterday promoting the new Universal Getmusic WP7 app, I jumped on the chance to ask them.. where’s Zune.

“When are we getting Zune in Australia with all major labels ? You guys are freaking Microsoft, why can’t you get this done ?”

The response..

“Other countries have announced availability. Please watch this space and when it’s available in Australia, we’ll let you know!”

While there’s no announcement of a firm date, their reply was at least ‘when’, not ‘if’. It also shows they are aware this is a problem and working on addressing it. Fingers crossed we see it soon.. come to think of it.. what’s the next big WP7 event ?

The first major WP7 update – NoDo is due within the next 2 weeks. This would be great a great opportunity to also expand Zune services internationally…

More @ Microsoft Tech Australia’s Facebook page

Zune Software is unfortunately crippled in Australia, missing some of the US-based features that make it great. A reader of techAU has worked out a registry hack to re-enable some of these features – thanks Matt.

The Zune hack will re-enable
 
·         Social
·         Smart DJ
·         Podcast Marketplace
·         Music 
 
Here’s what you do, open Regedit and navigate to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Zune, create a Key called FeaturesOverride. Within this key, create a DWORD for each feature you want to enable and set its value to 1 to the following:
 
·         Social
·         QuickMixLocal
·         Podcasts
·         Music (enables the menu item, but content is locked out)

Microsoft have just posted a press release regarding the expansion of their Zune services into new markets. Sadly the announcement is not a great on for Australians. The Zune Marketplace accompanying Music, TV shows and Movie rental service will now have select components available in select regions.

With Microsoft launching Windows Phone 7 later this year, one of the big questions is what the media offering would look like. This is Microsoft’s opportunity to have a legitimate competitor to market leader – Apple’s iTunes. The most compelling and unique features of the Zune Marketplace, is Zune Pass. This allows consumers to pay a monthly subscription fee and get access to Microsoft’s entire music library. Not only that, but keep 10 songs a month so if you ever decide to discontinue the service, those downloaded tracks are still yours.

So in this press release we discover that Australia won’t be getting Zune Pass, or a Music marketplace. What will be introduced in Australia is the the ability to rent movies from Zune Marketplace to your Windows-based PC and sync it to your WP7 device. This adds to the Zune Video Marketplace currently on offer in Australia via the Xbox 360.

Zune Marketplace will extend services to several markets in Europe and beyond.

Zune Pass (U.K., France, Italy and Spain). The monthly music subscription service will be available for 9.99 euros /8.99 pounds per month for unlimited download and streaming access to the Zune music catalog and will be accessible on Windows-based PCs, Windows Phone 7 and Xbox LIVE. The offer in the U.S. will remain at $14.99 per month for unlimited downloads and streaming access, with the ability to keep 10 MP3s per month.

Music purchase (U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Germany). Expansion to these markets will enable consumers to purchase MP3s and listen on their Windows-based PC, Windows Phone 7 or any other device that supports MP3 format. Users will also be able to purchase music videos to enjoy on Windows-based PC, Windows Phone 7 and Zune on Xbox LIVE.

Video purchase (U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Consumers will now be able to purchase movies to download and watch anywhere — on the big screen in the living room with Xbox LIVE or their Windows-based PC as well as sync it to their Windows Phone 7 to enjoy on the go.

Movie rental (U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). In addition to Zune video on Xbox LIVE, consumers in these countries will now be able to rent movies for viewing on their Windows-based PC or choose to sync the rental to their Windows Phone 7.

So where does this leave Australian consumers who want to move to Windows Phone 7 ? Without a music store on offer from Microsoft, does that mean we’re really expected to purchase music through iTunes, then import to Zune Software, then Sync to the WP7 device. On a platform with lots of momentum, this announcement is a massive drawback to the platform. To be successful, WP7 needs to go feature for feature with competitors and in one key area – Media, WP7 is not even on the same page. This is incredibly frustrating considering Microsoft had a real opportunity to leapfrog the competition.

No word on-device podcast support, but chances are it’ll be the old download on desktop and sync to device game.

More @ Microsoft

From last week, Zune owners (predominantly US-based) can now get the techAU podcast. Both the MP3 and HD versions are available. Whilst Australians may be scratching their heads as to why this is important, techAU does receive a significant amount of its audience from the US.

With Microsoft’s announcement that Windows Mobile 7 will include Zune services, including podcasts, this will be important globally in the future.

techAU is always committed to delivering content in new and exciting ways. Giving users more destinations to consume our content ultimately helps to build audience, and improve the show.

More @ Zune.net

Zune is finally going global ! A few hours ago Liveside posted about a Financial Times story that has details on Microsoft’s Zune brand going global to a total of 18 markets. Good news for Australians, is we’re on the list.

The Zune-branded service – which includes the most popular films from MGM, Paramount and Universal – will be available in 18 of its largest western markets, including the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia.

Given the introduction of the Zune Video Marketplace on Xbox (launching to public later today), it’s not entirely surprising. What this means for consumers is the introduction of the first subscription model for buying music. The big issue being price. Currently iTunes dominates electronic music sales in Australia, so I’d like to see Microsoft be aggressive with the Zune Pass pricing.

More @ LiveSide

Yesterday was a big day for the Xbox, the arrival of one of the best (if not the best) racing game available – Forza 3, as well as the launch of the Xbox Live Update Preview Program.

If you applied, like me, then you may have received an email acceptance into the preview program.

Available in the update for Australia is Facebook and Twitter integration as well as the brand new Zune Video Marketplace.

Xbox Live Update – Zune Marketplace

Other than the Zune desktop software, this is Zune’s official introduction into Australia. The Zune Video Marketplace offers movies in 1080p that start streaming instantly. It’s recommended you have least 4mbps to get HD, given how Australia’s broadband speeds are tiered, 1.5Mb will be too slow, so your going to want at least an 8Mb connection.

Quality

I hired the movie Uninvited in HD to review the quality and was very happy. Let me precursor this with the fact I’m on an ADSL2+ connection. The movie did in fact start straight away, with lower quality, then after about 30 seconds, the quality kicked in and the video was indeed great quality high definition. Now this is still obvious a lower quality bitrate than Blu-ray, so for those HD purists out there, this may not be for you. But for me this is a great service.

With HD using a large amount of data, you may be concerned about your download quota being chewed up by renting movies. A number of ISPs will offer Zune Video Marketplace content unmetered. An official list has not yet been released, but expect most to do this, it’s the only feasible way this service will work for Australian consumers.

Catalogue

Lets make no questions about this, the current movie selection is horrible. It is important to keep in mind this isn’t a product that’s officially launched, so by the time this goes public, I’d hope the catalogue of movies to choose from is dramatically improved.

Australian Pricing

Xbox Live Update – Facebook

Xbox Live Update – Twitter

Overall

In terms of updates, this is a good one that actually ads a lot of functionality. As for Last.fm, there’s no sign of it.

The new Zune Video Marketplace with a better catalogue will become my movie rental service of choice. Compared to  Blockbuster On Demand available through the TiVo, the Zune rentals are in HD and millions of Australians already have their credit card with Microsoft, lowering the barrier to entry.  SD videos on Zune are 4 cents cheaper at $5.94 compared to $4.95 on Blockbuster or iTunes.

The social features are nice, but without the messenger kit add-on, i don’t see people contributing content via the Xbox much. It’s $29.99, will this be the new must-have accessory ?