It's been treading water for quite some time, but Microsoft has today officially terminated its iPod competitor, the Zune. From now on, the Windows Phone will be MS' primary handheld focus. Looks like the company fed us a line of sh*t when it said this wouldn't happen.
That said, Microsoft won't be fully abandoning existing Zune users. Their products will still enjoy full access to Zune services and will continue to be protected under the terms of their warranty.
Considering the Zune was pretty much dead long before this announcement, it's more like Microsoft has dropped the Weekend At Bernies charade and let its corpse fall flat on the ground, with its bones jutting out of pallid, dried flesh and its bruise-covered face staring lifelessly at a little girl who is now screaming as the concept of her own mortality forces its way into her innocent, vital mind.
Something like that, anyway.
Microsoft Axes the Zune [IGN]
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Contest:
2:35 PM on 10.10.2011 | 
Blast! I don't have Netflix (yet)!
*sadface*
Oh yeah, Zune is gone... mumble, mumble...
http://entertainment.verizon.com/news/read.php?id=18775113&ps=1020&lang=en
Hope it doesn't get discontinued.
I'd say its too bad, but the success of the design and OS clearly lives on in WP7 and Windows8.
shame to see that once again, apple wins. Annoying.
An unfortunate end to a rather nice product.
@Jim:
MS didn't feed us a line of shit. MS said they weren't terminating the Zune brand, which they aren't. The Zune marketplace isn't going anywhere. It's only the line of devices that's being effected.
My Zune just died. I'll miss it :(
You still can do it the old fashioned way. Just go to your game library.
Or it was misunderstood what they meant by that.. Way I read it when that linked article was still new, was that they were integrating Zune into the LIVE experience, not that so much that the Zune name was sticking around. Theres no real reason to keep around a dead brand name and device when you can assimilate it into one that's growing.
I'm going on the assumption that they're not doing away with Zune as a service, but instead renaming it something more LIVE friendly and continuing the access people with a Zune has through that, while also continuing to keep the whole music section on XBL as it is (or how it will be when that update comes up soon)
Or they changed their minds? It's not like that never happens in business.
Either way, this is at least the 3rd time over the last year or two that I've seen the words "Microsoft kills off Zune" around the net, so it was kind of getting old any way, it needed to finally be completely done. Nothing was really lost here this day.
I'm tired of seeing things die just because the mainstream can't travel slightly outside of their comfort zone.
I've compared the Zune HD and iPod Touch side-by-side, and the Zune's sound quality trumps the iPod. Zunes have always been built to take a beating, and I personally prefer their UI both in-device and software.
With the only real iPod competitor dead, we're really in for a world of wallet pain, and Apple has no reason to make leaps and bounds in their product development.
I have to say I use Zune because I have a Windows phone, and I like it way more than iTunes. I now use it as my main music player on my PC.
Even the article linked as "said this wouldn't happen" has no details about the hardware device.
This is a travesty.