Zune Thoughts: A Few More Details About International Release

"Up until now, the portable media player and its online iTunes Store equivalent, Zune Marketplace, have only been available in the US. From early Autumn, however, a revised service, Zune Video, will be available on Xbox Live in the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Spain (with more countries coming aboard later). Xbox 360 owners in these territories will be able to go online and access video content and play it via their console. A variety of access options will be available, including instant streaming, download to rent and download to own. However, no Zune portable music players will be launched outside of the US - at least not yet. This is about the online service only."

It's still fairly difficult to determine what Microsoft's strategy around an international release will be. So far they've been tight-lipped about their specific plans with regards to launching the Zune services outside of North America or Western Europe, and even the Zune HD doesn't look like it'll make it outside of the US. This seems like a poor strategy, and one I really hope they fix before the HD launches in the fall.