Last.fm free to Xbox Live Gold users News

so... you need to have the payable gold sub, are confronted with ads and make it news that this is "free".

what a load of bollocks...

but it sounds better than: we charge you, make you buy more, but allow you to actually do something with all the money we get...

Err.... it is music. Nobody watches the ads, you just turn off your TV and let the music play.

Err.... it is music. Nobody watches the ads, you just turn off your TV and let the music play.

You're assuming everyone has a separate sound system?

YAY complain about a free service time!

"You're assuming everyone has a separate sound system? "

Eh? It's internet Radio. You just minimize the browser? Or am I missing something here? Certainly that's the case with equivalents like deezer.

should we complain about Eurogamer having ads after we payed for the internet?

I'm perfectly happy about the ads as long as they don't disrupt the service - it's better then paying for it

I never use the 360 to play music, I have Media Center for that. How about my Gold account giving me Last.FM support for Media Center?

My gold sub expires today. I'm not too pushed about renewing it right now as I've no multiplayer games to play. I don't think I'd renew it for something like this.

So..., let say, it would be better to not have any new services, because any new service would be paid, since Gold costs money. FFS..., we have to write something don't we?

how are people managing to find a negative in added value for a paid service?

anytime anything good is added to any system, brand defenders have to knock it. Unless they're paying you to do it it's really sad.

/facepalm

you pay the sub to MS not Last.fm therefore getting Last.fm as a gold sub is free, technically, as you are not paying anything extra for it. Don't care about ads on a screen for playing music. I DO mind about ads on the dashboard but that's a different topic/article

arguing with idiots on the internet etc...

Does this mean you can listen to the radio whilst playing a game, like custom soundtracks but with radio?

Sounds good to me. If they allow you to use Last.fm while playing a game much like the music player works now it will be great, if they don't it will be somewhat pointless for me.

Does this mean you can listen to the radio whilst playing a game, like custom soundtracks but with radio?

That is the big question. TBH that is a must IMHO for this service to be really useful and awesome.

Presumably you can still have a full Last.fm subscription on a Silver account if you want? It's the same deal with online RPGs on the Xbox like Final Fantasy 11 and Phantasy Star Universe, where you have to pay regardless of your account type. The difference here is that you pretty much get the service for free if you have Gold. I don't really see this as a problem.

Now, now. The streaming is only available in the US, UK and Germany if I'm correct (via the last.fm website). So, how's it going to work with all regions of Xbox Live? It's *not* going to work at all?

The streaming is only available in the US, UK and Germany if I'm correct (via the last.fm website).

Only some features. Last.fm is working fine everywhere as far as I know. The Live version will probably be a full version running everywhere, that is part of the deal. Anyway.. if you have a full Last.fm sub atm you can use that on Silver Live.

Lot of people assuming its visual ads as well, it could be audio ads your force to listen to between every song. Thats just speculation i would hope to god its not.

To be honest tho instead of las fm support twitter support and face book support, i would much prefer web browser support, and i know not many people know this but MS do actually have a web broweser product. i think they call it Internet Explorer

Does this mean that PS3 users will be blocked from usin the site through the PS3 browser?

Does this mean that PS3 users will be blocked from usin the site through the PS3 browser?
Yes.

Dizzy, that's what I've been wanting to know - if you pay for the full access on the 360 (no ads etc), does that also give me access to Loved tracks on my PC?

Although, to be honest I'm not really bothered about Last.FM coming to 360, I don't listen to music while playing games and I can listen to LFM on my XBOX

Would be great to have it while playing games - hopefully they integrate it into the media center thingy.

mcmonkeyplc: "YAY complain about a free service time!"

Being free doesn't stop anyone on this site bitching about PSN or VideoZone etc etc. Why should this be any different. :)

@ Lionheart

Last.fm does NOT cost £40 a year. A Gold Live subscription costs £40 a year. If you have that already, then the cost of the Last.fm service is free.

Do you shout at supermarkets who proclaim "Buy One, Get One Free!" that the second item isn't free because you have to buy the first one in order to qualify? Because that's what you're saying here.

I don't really understand - Silver users get some sort of "time-limited access"? And Gold users get ad-supported access?

Anyone can sign up at last.fm right this second and get unlimited listening without even owning an Xbox, so why on earth are they not allowing this for Silver users? Or am I missing something?

how come last.fm on my iphone believes that i love the rock so much?

I dont know bioreit... Its just not "free free" is it.
Not like Last.fm is on your PC or iPhone or even your PS3 via the browser...

If you wanna use it for "Free" ie no subscription to live then you have to use the Ad Version. Which is fine but sometimes a little intrusive...

And if we have more of thisto come then god knows what Ms have got instore for us with their Marketing/Advertising campaigns in the future.

Just make it free and the same for all. Whats with all this eleitist rubbish.

how come last.fm on my iphone believes that i love the rock so much?

Do you scrobble your own MP3s and CDs when you play them? The radio needs something to work with before it can predict your tastes...

Awesome. No really, I can't wait to see what kind of phorm or malware gets introduced onto my Xbox via a dodgy 3rd party ad company that then spreads to my PC and laptop whenever I do any kind of interaction or plugging my external drive into the Xbox. This is horrific, I see a horrible future for the dashboard/services screens, especially when http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/mi... is happening.

At least they should build in an option to block the social networking (yes, they'll have those horrible 'hot singles in your area' ads too in time) and last.fm blades/screens so that even a drunken mis-scroll won't allow my system to get infected with shite. more to the point, unless this is kept an MS only operated ad service using a vetting service that blocks and kind of scripting (making the 'interactivity' of th eabove link interesting) how do they intend to keep the risque adverts out of view of those under the rule of parental controls? Surely parents who add limitations and configure the system to prevent gore, swearing etc will go mental at seeing their 12yr old subjected to dating ads with half naked bodies all over the place?

I pray to whatever omnipotent beings there may be to come and smite the need for advertising on every single thing I own that interacts with the internet. I wouldnt mind if I could trust adverts. Maybe the XBL community software will erupt with anti-advert software. I'd like an X360 version of noscript and ad-blocker please :)

@kj66246 - it's not really elitist, just a way of garnering more revenue (though I'm sure MS and last.fm would argue it's the only way that they can recoup costs to pay royalties to the RIAA, etc). Ii certainly wouldn't boast to my mates about having the ad-free sub to last.fm.

The more ads intrude then the more we look for a solution to get rid of them, the easiest offering being a magical switch that turns them all off...for a fee. It's the threshold that's the key, people that use the service a lot may feel its worth the extra payment, others like me will rather not use the service at all than risk anything infectious being introduced through the ads. not nice if suddenly some script in a fancy silverlight ad accessed my profile data and stole the credit card details I use for XBLA.

I agree with you, this is not good. but it isn't really elitist. :)

"Err.... it is music. Nobody watches the ads, you just turn off your TV and let the music play."

You're assuming its using pictures as adverts rather than audio or video (with audio).

@ kj66246

Yes it IS free. Last.fm is a free service for people with an Internet browser - the fact that Microsoft have allowed people on Gold subs to get access to it as a free addition to the Live service makes it 'free'. You do not pay extra for it on top of your Gold sub.

An extension of your logic would be that the PSN service is not free, because you need to pay for a PS3, TV, Internet connection and electricity in order to use it. In fact, you also need to rent/buy a house to house all that stuff in too....

Or how about getting Sky 2meg broadband? It's not 'free' as you need to have a valid Sky sub in order to qualify. But if you're paying for the sub anyways, it's a free addition.

ahah, this "free not free" debate is interesting. I imagine some guys buying a car and when the salesman say he wants to offer a GPS with it, they outrageously say:
"No! Don't want, that is not free! I'm already paying for the car, don't want!"

It's free as long as you pay £40 a year.

@ skillian

It's free to access Last.fm on Xbox Live as long as you pay £40 a year.

It's free to access BBC iPlayer as long as you pay £XX /month for broadband.

It's free to access IGN Insider as long as you pay $5-10 /month for Fileplanet Founder's Club membership.

It's what's called an 'extra'.

So when they announce the Twitter service it'll probably be like a 50 tweets per month cap for Silver members? That would be hilarious, but given MS' urge to lure people into Gold subscriptions, altogether possible.

@bioreit

Sorry, I agree with svd_grasshopper- if you can't get it on silver then it's not free. You might as well say online multiplayer is free.

@ svd_grasshopper

I wasn't aware that paying for one service and at a later date receiving another service from a completely disassociated company at no extra cost, rendered the second service's non-payment status null and void.

I'd better get on to Sky and whinge at them for my supposedly 'free' installation of my Sky+ HD box, seeing as it's cost me £49 for the box and £45 / month for the subscription, it cannot possibly have been free to install, can it.....?

@ skillian

I pay for a Gold subscription. I use it, I always renew it. Soon, for no extra cost beyond what I already pay, I will be able to access Last.fm over my 360.

What part of that means it isn't free for Gold subscribers?

If you don't have a Gold subscription, you won't be able to access it on your 360 - as kind of mentioned quite clearly in the article headline up ^ there:

"Last.fm free to Xbox Live Gold users"

Again, I can only point out that by your logic, BBC iPlayer cannot possibly ever be considered to be a 'free' service, because in order to use it, you must pay for a broadband connection, nor can Sky's (or O2's, or Orange's) low-speed broadband ever be considered 'free', as in order to qualify, you must take out a relevant package/mobile contract.

Ok, the elequoency of svd_grasshopper (although he didn't use his line "in yer face M$ man!") won me. I'm selling my 360s and my huge 360 games collection and join the PS3 righteous movement. This paid Last.fm thing has to stop. No more new services MS man. No more!

Where do I sign?

note: I do perfer svd_grasshopper performance at Computer and Videogames. He's more poignant.

@ bioreit

OK, I think we're just arguing semantics. As I said above it's free to those who pay £40 a year, which is the same as you saying it's free to Xbox Live Gold users.

As an aside though, I wouldn't consider Sky's low speed broadband free - you pay for it within your contract. I wouldn't consider the handset you get in a mobile deal free either.

pandora is already free on my PSTriple

"I agree. The title of this news item is misleading. This is far off from being free."

No it isn't, you idiots. That's like saying Google isn't free, because you have to pay an ISP for service to get there.

@ skillian

But how do you pay for Sky broadband in your contract? I choose not to have Sky Broadband, yet I pay eaxctly the same for my package as if I had chosen to take it - there's no price difference whether it is included or not!

It's the same with Last.fm for Gold subscribers - if you already pay £40 a year for Gold and you don't get Last.fm, then when you can get Last.fm and choose to do so, you still only pay £40 a year! Therefore, Last.fm is provided to Xbox Gold subscribers at no extra cost - i.e. for free.

I understand you saying that you cannot have no subscription to Xbox Live and gain access Last.fm, but that's neither what the article nor Microsoft claimed, so I don't actually get why you're criticising it for:

a) not doing it in a way they aren't actually talking about and
b) not being free to absolutely all and sundry,

as you seem to think that b) applies to absolutely any- and everything that is claimed to be free, as somewhere along the line there is going to be a cost incurred somewhere - so why appear to single this particular item out for so much zeal?

@ svd_grasshopper

"it isnt available for free on the xbox; if you want it, you need to purchase a live subscription. live subs are not free."

Wow. Way to fail at basic reading. The article headline clearly states that "Last.fm [is] free to Xbox Live Gold users", so quite why you're arguing against this as though they have said it's free to all Xbox Live users, I don't know.

ok... so my very first and very first comment was a little off. karma -3 as it stands - it should be lower.

I adhere to the guys who say that it indeed is free to gold users - and it indeed is as an extra service on top of what you have with gold subscriptions. So, nice going MS.

...

but, it does not alter the fact that I think the charged gold account is something which needs to be taken into account when calculating 360's TCO (total cost of ownership)...

(had also written the following and am refusing to delete it ->) ... against PS3's and in that regard, I do think the main competitor to 360 offers a very high value proposition - or whatever the words the Sony bigwigs use... with all the extra's you get, PS3 just is the more sensible choice - regardless of 360's ill-engineering. ;)

@bioreit

You are right, I was making the wrong argument considering the headline, and your point. Sorry.

But I was more picking up on the fact that people were saying you can't moan about it being ad-supported because it's a free service, and in that case I think it's fair to question the definition of free when you're paying £40 to MS (who presumably pay Last.fm, not your electricity company or your sofa maker) to be in a position to receive it in the first place.

I guess the reason I went after this "with such zeal" is beacause Last.fm is already completely free to anyone with an internet browser (in this country anyway), and it just seems a shame that Microsoft have applied their unfortunate segregated online system to this as well as online gaming and excluded 50% of their user-base from the service. It will be interesting to see what happens with Twitter and Facebook.

And the fact that you're paying the same amount for Sky as those who get Sky+broadband doesn't mean they're getting it free, it means you're subsidising their service.

"and it just seems a shame that Microsoft have applied their unfortunate segregated online system"

This is what I was trying to say with my elitist comment. Just make it accessible across the board.