The Sony-Spotify partnership announced earlier this year wasn’t made in vain, as their brainchild, known as PlayStation Music, finally got launched today.
The Japanese corporation already had an audio streaming service, called Music Unlimited, but that one wasn’t exactly available in as many countries or on as many devices as Sony would’ve wanted. In consequence, the company had to collaborate with others to target a greater audience with its products. The partner came in the form of Swedish startup Spotify, and the resulting product was named PlayStation Music.
Judging by the name, you might think that PlayStation Music is available exclusively on Sony’s gaming console, but you would be wrong. Not only is it available on the PS4, but also on the previous generation, and on top of that, users can also take advantage of this music streaming service on Xperia smartphones and tablets. Sony wouldn’t advertise the fact that the service is actually available on Android devices regardless of the brand, but my guess is that you could use PlayStation Music on any smartphone or tablet running Google’s mobile OS, as long as you’re in a country where Spotify works.
Getting started is pretty intuitive, but Sony insisted to post a guide on the PlayStation Network website. There are two sets of instructions, actually, and you need to follow the one belonging to the type of device you own.
Gaming console users will have to download the Spotify app and login or create a new Spotify account. Next, they need to link their PlayStation Network account to Spotify and enjoy all the music they can stream. The instructions for Xperia devices are much simpler, but very similar.
An ad-supported version of the app is available for free, but the ones who want an uninterrupted experience will have to pay $10 for a subscription. The bad news is that Xbox One users will have to wait a bit to get a similar streaming service for their consoles. Even worse, there are some chances that Sony may benefit from exclusivity in its relationship with Spotify, and seeing how the forum thread requesting an equivalent for the Xbox one has gone past 40 pages, one might conclude that there’s no room for Microsoft in this monogamous relationship.
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In a twist that is not surprising at all Sony has decided to partner with Spotify to create PlayStation Music, eliminating the need for Music Unlimited in the process.
PlayStation Music is a new service announced by Sony and Spotify that will allow gamers to do something else with their consoles whenever they’re taking a break: to access the endless supply of music in Spotify’s library of tunes. And because of this, Sony realized there was no point in Music Unlimited existing anymore, so their support will end the 29th of March, right on time for Spotify to finish the new program.
Music Unlimited used to be Sony’s on-demand service, and it launched as Qriocity in 2010. While it was supported in 19 countries, the service was unavailable in many others that had local versions of Sony’s offerings and services. It seems that the service was more of a hassle for Sony, who now seem happy to get rid of it and hand the responsibility off to a third party, like many other companies outside of the video game field have done.
PlayStation Music will let users access and manage their Spotify playlists and songs from the consoles, and link both Spotify and PSN accounts even letting users pay for Spotify via their PSN wallets. The service will be available for all of Sony’s home consoles (PS3 & PS4) but not for the portable PS Vita. The idea is to let users listen to music while they play their favorite games.
Current Music Unlimited users will receive the next month for free as well as a free Spotify trial once the new app launches. All in all, the service will be available in: Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA.
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