Microsoft Renames Xbox Music to Groove Music, Xbox Video to Movies & TV
Microsoft is going to rebrand its Spotify-like Xbox Music service to Groove Music. The new service will be available to beta testers on Windows 10 this week, and become available to everyone with the official release of Windows 10 on July 29. The rebrand was announced with a blog post, which also mentioned that Xbox Video is being rebranded as Movies & TV.
Groove Music looks to be largely the same as Xbox Music, offering users both a Spotify-like on-demand experience if they pay $10 a month, as well as access to their personal music stored on Microsoft’s OneDrive. The new service will initially just be available on Windows devices, Xbox game consoles and the web, but Microsoft promises to release Android and iOS apps “soon.”
Microsoft’s existing online video storefront is also getting a brand refresh of sorts, albeit with a slightly less spectacular name: Xbox Video will simply be called Movies & TV in Windows 10. The app gain support for playback of .mkv files, and connect users to the Windows Store to buy content. The rebrand will presumably also extend to the Xbox game consoles itself, but there’s no word on apps for third-party mobile platforms.
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