It’s been a few months since we’ve heard anything about JB Hi-Fi’s music subscription service, but now the retailer has launched a teaser page outlining the service, as well as given an indication of starting prices.
Essentially a competitor with Sony’s Qriocity and Microsoft’s Zune music services, JB Hi-Fi Now is an all you can eat music streaming subscription services that offers six million songs from over 100,000 artists, streamable to your computer for a flat monthly fee.
JB is hoping to differentiate itself by introducing in-depth band information on artists and albums, as well as offering the ability to create playlists you can share with friends, all while following others. So kind of like Ping, except in a music streaming service, I guess.
The preview page claims pricing will start at $6.67 a month, which is a reasonable starting point, although there’s no mention of what that fee actually includes, nor how high the payment ceiling is.
Mobile apps will also be launching next year, as opposed to the launch window for the PC version which is set to happen this year.
It all sounds fairly standard stuff. My question is whether it’s enough to persuade people away from Qriocity or Zune?
[JB Hi-Fi]
TSH
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 9:10 AMDoes anybody actually use Qriocity or Zune subscription services?
Obviously *some* people do, but I’m just skeptical that the market is big enough.
LRE
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 9:52 AMWell Zune has just started here, but it seems promising. It’s very nice on the Xbox, it’s just a pity you don’t get to own a number of tracks a month like in the US.
Jahn
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 9:59 AM*Waves* Massive fan of subscription services. I use Qriocity at home (TV & PS3) and work (PC). I love the instant unlimited access to a massive library. I discover new music on a regular basis and can listen to what i want on a whim. They don’t have everything of course, but they have a decent catalogue & it’s not all “Commercial shit”.
wsDK_II
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:34 AMi use Zune, 11 million tracks, $11 a month…..no question about it :D
Glenn
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 9:29 AMThey better be offering music for all available artists they sell in store, if they ignore the metal bands I’ll be disappointed.
Sean C
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 9:49 AMAgreed! Who wants to pay to stream the same sh!t you could hear on any commercial radio station at any time of the day?
RB
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 1:34 PMThere’s lots of metal on there currently ;)
I, like Troy below, have beta access and am quite impressed by the service as a whole. I also see it having a lot of potential if the service ever expands to offer TV series and Movie streaming as well. I’d happily give up my ‘fallen off the back of the internet’ ways and use this for everything.
Troy
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:00 AMI’ve actually been using the site, I work for JB and we get beta access. Its still got a lot of bugs, but the music collection has impressed me. I like a lot of bands that aren’t so popular but have been able to find a lot of there stuff on here. Better than iTunes in some ways. It seems to be great quality and stream quickly, though the website still has some design and usability issues to work around. You can create ‘mixes’ too, like playlists and share em with friends. I know there are heaps of other sites that you can do this on but this is the first I’ve used and I like it.
Once its fully released and gets windows and android apps, I would be happy to pay a fee for it, and this is coming from a guy who pirates most things.
Drew
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:03 AMPandora and Spotify ftw, $7/month for a US VPN, you also get Hulu and for another $7/month you get Netflix
SB
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:46 AMWhat VPN do you get for $7/month?
Cameron
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 12:23 PM@SB – StrongVPN. Basic US VPN costs $21 per 3 months. Highly recommended. Having Netflix is just the best.
SB
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 12:40 PMThank you :-)
Drew
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 2:22 PMIt’s bad enough Cameron outed them, keep it quiet ok…. If Hulu catches on they will blacklist them like so many other VPN providers
Sicarius123
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:05 AMQriocity is awful. I have no idea why any PS3 users would pay for it with the free revamped vidzone available right next to it.
AzzaD
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:21 AMSpotify is much better priced, $4.99 usd for access worldwide
Terry OFee
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:50 AMi’d lve to give spottily a try but all my efforts were unsuccessful the other night. I’m guessing you got in early?? :)
AzzaD
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 11:41 AMgo here, http://unblock-us.com/152.html, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial, then signup for a Spotify account (US or UK, either works) ..you can use Spotify for 14 days I believe without it saying you’re out of the country. If you want to pay for it at that time you since you already have an account with Spotify all you have to do is upgrade to either the $5 or $10 a month plans for access from Australia again …if you want to keep UnBlockUS its 4.99 cad a month, quite worth it too since you can get Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Spotify etc and all you need to change is your DNS settings on your pc or modem, really worth it for me – had it for a about a year now
Drew
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 12:30 PMAustralian credit cards don’t work with Spotify :(
I’d love to have offline play on my phone and be able to use it on my Boxee Box
Terry OFee
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:49 AMi have a sonos. for the moment the only decent streaming service with a decent collection is rhapsody. if it’s browser only i’ll pass for the time being.. the sony service (songl) is going in the right direction but the lack of a decent catalogue is holding it back for the time being…
blueevo
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 11:21 AMThe subscription services wont really catch on unless they include it as free traffic on your mobile data plan.
Well thats the thing thats really holding me back at the moment.
I think its a pretty cheap legal way of obtaining music and really want to give it a shot.