The prices Microsoft announced yesterday for its Zune MP3 player and music service mirror those of the competition – $15/month for the "To Go"-capable subscription, 99 cents per a la carte song, and $250 for the 30GB player. But only Microsoft will also allow you to pay for music using its own currency, which it developed for XBox gamers.
In case you don't own an XBox 360, Microsoft Points are a form of currency that you can buy in bulk, micro-spending them on a new sword for your character or just one level from a game. Microsoft Points also avoid the sales-crippling effect of kids not having credit/debit cards at the ready.
Microsoft plans to let users sell game-related content they created themselves to other users for these same Microsoft Points. This got me thinking... what would happen if this concept were translated over to the Zune? Most people don't make their own music, but the musical equivalent could be selling a version of a song that has your own original video, a particularly inspired karaoke version, or a remixed song. Of course, all you would get for these sales would be more points, so the system wouldn't make sense for artists trying to get paid in real benjamins. Not to mention that most of the time, adding a karaoke track severely devalues a song. But maybe you could accrue points through referrals, the way people do for linking to their favorite albums on Amazon.
As far as what this means from a design architecture perspective, Gamespot had the same thought I did... If you can use the same currency, you must be in the same country, right? (Aside from in the E.C. and probably some other places I'm forgetting, that is.) Does this shared support for Microsoft Points mean that the Zune and the XBox 360 might connect to each other somehow?
Microsoft couldn't comment on the level of future intermingling between the Zune marketplace and the XBox marketplace, or on what might happen down the road with these two devices, which were developed by the same team, but did confirm that users will be able to trade the same Microsoft Points for either XBox game elements or Zune songs.
At the very least, the six to ten million (by year's end) XBox 360 owners out there might be more likely to buy a Zune due to this compatibility, like the way the Mac-only iPod was said to have had a complimentary effect on iBook sales.
80 Microsoft Points cost $1, while 79 Microsoft Points get you an a la carte song in the Zune format. There's no bargain, just a new dilemma for the music fan: the invisibility cloak or the new Gnarls Barkley?
