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All posts tagged "price"


Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Zune Pass Price Coming Down?

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Media" @ 09:42 AM

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...utive-says.html

"Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, may cut the monthly fee it charges for streaming music on its Zune portable player, senior product manager Terry Farrell said in an interview. Zune Pass, which features unlimited music streaming and 10 song downloads a month, now costs $14.99. Farrell didn’t say by how much Microsoft may cut the service’s price. “It’s definitely a challenging business,” Farrell said, referring to competition in online music. Microsoft is contending with rivals that offer music at little or no charge, while striving to erode Apple Inc.’s lead in the market for digital music players and downloadable songs. RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody service in April slashed the monthly price of a premium music service to $10 from $14.99."

This would be great if true, but I'm not sure that cost is what's holding people back from buying into the subscription service. Zune Pass is already a great deal with 10 credits/$15 unlimited, and I'm not sure how Rhapsody is faring with its price cut. I know that Napster hasn't seen a huge uptick since it went 5 credits/$5 a month. I think the problem is more in how to market such a service, which all three of these companies have struggled with in the past.


Thursday, July 2, 2009

Zune HD Rumours: Possible Price Points and Insanely Awesome Battery Life?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Talk" @ 12:44 PM

Another week, another couple of rumours about the forthcoming Zune HD. First up, price points: the 16 GB and 32 GB capacities seem all but confirmed at this point, and now Electronista has some information about the price point of the 16 GB Zune HD being between $249 and $279 USD. The price point make it a little less expensive than the 16 GB iPod Touch, which is a good move for Microsoft. No word on the pricing of the 32 GB Zune HD, but I'd guess we'll see it in the $349 to $379 realm. There's also a rumour about a 64 GB Zune coming "down the road", which isn't shocking - this is all about the price point of Flash, nothing more. Microsoft could release a 128 GB Zune HD, but it would probably cost $899. So for all of you who have full Zune 120s, this is not the device for you.

Moving along to the issue of battery life, we have (supposedly) a Microsoft employee who likes to blab to a fellow named Ryan Rea (Volvoshine), and the result is a claim of 5x battery life over the current iPod Touch. The iPod Touch 2nd gen unit is rated for 36 hours of audio or six hours of video. If the 5x factor proves to be true, on paper at least we'd be looking at 180 hours of audio or 30 hours of video. That seems virtually impossible - I'm expecting to see some battery life gains by moving to the OLED screen and the Tegra chip, but 5x? I'm calling hoax on this one. I hope I'm wrong, because that kind of battery life is game-changing, but when something seems too good to be true, it usually is...


Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Originals Free No More

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Buy & Sell" @ 11:00 PM

http://zuneoriginals.net/

"It couldn’t last forever. Now those free, laser-etched designs of the Zune Originals series will cost ya. Microsoft quietly made the switch sometime over the last few weeks (if not the weekend) according to forum jockeys riding the Zuneboards. The Tattoo Series is now $10 or $15 for the Artist Series. Custom engravings are still free. Of course, there’s no better way to keep those Zunes original than to charge cold, cash money for off-the-shelf designs."



I agree that it's a little whack to charge $10-$15 for a mass-produced etching, but I can also imagine that it costs a good deal of money to run an operation like this. Oddly, while they've decided to charge for these "off-the-shelf" designs that are standard throughout the line, text inscription, the one truly unique customization, is still free. Go figure. I guess they couldn't justify "free for a limited time only" without actually limiting the time for which it was free.


Update: Fixed atrocious grammar and re-formatted title.


Friday, February 1, 2008

Zune8 now $179

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Buy & Sell" @ 08:00 PM

"It's been slowly spreading from one retailer to another today, but it looks like the Zune 8 is now officially just $179. No word on what spurred the $20 price drop -- hey, Microsoft is feeling rather generous today -- but if you were looking for 8GBs of the social, now seems like as good a time as any. Just don't spend the coin you save on a tattoo, okay? We'll cry."

That's great news! I tried to check on ZuneOriginals.net to see if the price was affected there, but it seemed to be convinced my vanilla IE7 install wasn't compatible. Can anyone check on it and let me know?

Tags: , price, drop, lower, pricedrop

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Zune's Back On Woot: Get Yours For $129.99!!

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Buy & Sell" @ 10:10 PM

http://www.Woot.com

"I have received more than three emails from Zune buyers who are upset about Woot dropping the price of the Zune by $20 one month after it went on sale the first time. After reading every one of these emails, or at least scanning their subject lines, I have some observations and conclusions. First, I need to make a better effort to hide my email address. Second, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 30GB Zune from $149.99 to $129.99."

Woot.com has pulled through again, lowering their already incredibly low price to correspond with Microsoft's official price drop. The new price is almost half the original suggested retail price, making this one amazing value. A few caveats: they're only selling white Zunes, they're only available today, and once they're gone, they're gone.

Well, what are you waiting for? Get clicking!

If that weren't enough, they were able to make fun of Steve Jobs' iPhone price drop apology, and give Wooters who bought the Zune last time around a $10 credit to any Woot $40 or more. How do you like them apples?

UPDATE: It's Gone, all Gone! Congrats to everyone who was able to beat the rush.


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