It's a rare sight whenever you see rivals Sony and Microsoft working together, but the giants are working together at least for one service, the Xbox's music matching service.
Xbox Music is powered by Gracenote, which provides music recognition, metadata and most other features of the service. Gracenote is owned by Sony's digital music division.
The service is available across all of Microsoft's platforms, including Xbox, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT and is also available on iOS and Android.
To get access to the Gracenote-powered features, you will have to purchase Xbox Music Pass which allows you to identify music tracks (and albums), "unlock them in the cloud, and stream them across their devices." All purchased tracks, no matter where they were acquired can be stored in the cloud. The pass costs $10 per month.
"A big frustration for music fans is having to completely rebuild their collections when switching between streaming or download services," added Stephen White, the president at Gracenote. "Gracenote music recognition and data will make it easy for Xbox Music users to migrate their collections to the cloud without searching, repurchasing, or even uploading."
The service is available across all of Microsoft's platforms, including Xbox, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT and is also available on iOS and Android.
To get access to the Gracenote-powered features, you will have to purchase Xbox Music Pass which allows you to identify music tracks (and albums), "unlock them in the cloud, and stream them across their devices." All purchased tracks, no matter where they were acquired can be stored in the cloud. The pass costs $10 per month.
"A big frustration for music fans is having to completely rebuild their collections when switching between streaming or download services," added Stephen White, the president at Gracenote. "Gracenote music recognition and data will make it easy for Xbox Music users to migrate their collections to the cloud without searching, repurchasing, or even uploading."
