<sigh> Australia misses out.....again :(

[Strider_Aus]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/20/m...-coming-to-to/

From this link;

* The Zune Pass subscription service will hit the UK, France, Italy and Spain, offering unlimited streaming for £8.99 / €9.99 per month but no ability to keep 10 tracks a month as with the $14.99 US service.

* Music purchases will arrive in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, and the format will be unencumbered MP3.

* Video purchases will come to the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with playback support across the PC, Xbox Live, and Windows Phone 7.

* Video rentals will hit the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and can be synced to the PC, Xbox Live, and Windows Phone 7.

Geez - only video rentals and purchases for ZuneHD here..... Dave you gotta start ditching all those European business trips and focus on our massive and important <read arse end of the world!> Southern Hemisphere market!!!!

Still no details re: Aussie WP7 release, No Zune Pass announcements. Gotta love everything about being Aussie - except for bloody tech lag/bottom of the barrel....

....

[CrowdAds]

[htpconvert]

I'm with you Strider! I just got my Zune HD yesterday, and got really excited when I heard that there was a zune annoucement today - only to be saddened again when I realised Australia missed out on the zune pass/song downloads.

Oh well - guess I will keep buying zune pass cards instead :-(

[lip]

Already mentioned it in the zune marketplace forum...

What about us up in Canada...we even had Zunes in Canada at one time...
I think our markets are too small for MS to put a lot of money into their legal departments...for sure it's about copyright issues...
It would be nice to at least get some info from MS but for years they just keep saying next year...

[htpconvert]

Yes I imagine it is not a deliberate decision of Microsoft to not bringing the full zune experience to the world. I assume (at least in Australia) there are stupid licensing laws that make content availability almost impossible (although while I know there are ridiculous laws here regarding tv/movies - I didn't think it was quite the same for music)

[Strider_Aus]

Yeah - content copyright holders here in AUS just can't deal with the new order of 2010+

I've bought 1/2 a dozen Albums (first I've bought in ages not counting Zune Pass credits!) since having a Zune Pass. Quality content, stuff I have tried and liked via Zune Pass I will either buy (or use Zune pass credits) - something I may never have done if not for the Zune Pass service (ie to discover and assess a full album's appeal).

Shit - I never watched a SINGLE episode of LOST on free to air TV, every single one was watched on short-delay from the US - and last month I spent almost $250US buying the Complete Collection Blu-Ray Lost release priorty shipped to AUS. That's around $2 an episode for 1080P Blu-ray in an awesome collectors edition pack...

Zune's, Kindles, Blu-Ray Region (RIPOFF) codes, Gaming releases (LFD2 censorship in AUS release) etc etc

Australian Music Studios and Movie/TV Distributors just need to realise their market is smarter today - and demands quality product, AND is prepared to pay for it! Stop artificially creating lost opportunity cost estimates based on shit people wouldn't buy in the firstplace, stop creating borders/customs/barriers to global products and just release and be competitive.

<sigh>

I work in a manufacturing industry that competes with overseas landed imports, with no incoming tariffs - from country's with artificially pegged currencies - and export incentives from governments, where labour rates a a fraction of here & working conditions don't matter - and we have to work to justify any domestic premium over Import parity....

....and Music and Film studios think they are doing it hard! Just give us what we want - and competitively or the market will pass you by.

<end of rant>

[copeys]

Meh. Ship me a Zune HD and I'm happy.

Couldn't care that much about Marketplace TBH. Although it will be nice that when I select "Music" on my 360 it will take me to music, not video library

[Jacob]

I doubt this is the end of their internationalisation. You have xBox in Aus, right? I have no facts to back this up, but I doubt it came out there at the same time.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by copeys

Meh. Ship me a Zune HD and I'm happy.

Then you would have to have the Zune software and iTunes on the same computer! Oh, the horror!

[lip]

I think obviously MS wants every country to be able to subscribe to zune music but negotiations are probably very difficult in some countries. However, my point is that if they are as serious as they seem, they can overcome it if there is enough incentive and I think there is not that much for countries such as Australia and Canada as we are relatively small.
I'd love to be wrong and see an announcement tomorrow that Canada (and Aus) will be getting the Zune pass but I doubt it will happen very soon, if at all.

[copeys]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Then you would have to have the Zune software and iTunes on the same computer! Oh, the horror!

. My computer needs a workout... All it seems to do is use chrome, and itunes - which doesn't really push the 4GB of RAM that I paid for

Originally Posted by Jacob

I doubt this is the end of their internationalisation. You have xBox in Aus, right? I have no facts to back this up, but I doubt it came out there at the same time.

Do we have xbox in Aus?? Ummm, yeah . They were released at the same time as well. links

However, one of the main problems that happens in Australia with related to movies and TV shows, is that they are released at completely different times. I can remember a time when if you were to go online and watch episodes, they would be up to the next season in advance. The companies over here are just to slow. However, because of the whole "internetz" craze, US tv episodes are being "fastracked" to Australia, meaning they are being aired here the day after the release in the US. For example, tonight, we will see the season 2 premiere of glee, and you only see it in a couple of hours. So, they have cut the time from several weeks, to less then 16 hrs or something (quick maths, I may be wrong.)

This is a major problem, because of the different release dates of TV shows and movies, and you can see this reflected in the itunes store. Thats one of the reasons that the itunes store has regions implemented so it limits what you can/can not see based on your location and the deals they have with the companies. (All of the above does have a reason for the statement below, trust me )

Understandably, that would mean more deals with people such as the record companies for each subsidiary and in each country to make it worthwhile to have an itunes store in the first place. And you think that apple didn't have a lock-in contract with the record companies and media companies which stopped all other businesses (like Microsoft w/zune) snapping up a similar deal with the record companies as well???

I have nothing to back that statement up, but seriously, the amount of law-suits that apple throws around, and the amount of patents that the have, leads me to believe that it would be something they would do without hesitation.

[lem7]

Glad I live in the US =)