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Xbox One adds music videos to streaming service

Xbox Music will automatically play any of 92,000 songs as an HD video, in a fledgling rival to Vevo.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
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Joan E. Solsman
Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One console on May 21, 2013.
Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One console on May 21, 2013. James Martin/CNET

Xbox Music, Microsoft's music streaming product for its game console franchise, is adding music videos to the gaming console, the company said Tuesday in a blog post.

"Once a TV staple, music videos are now primarily housed on the internet, where easy access is key," it wrote, noting that when customers play a track on their Xbox One using Xbox Music, the song will automatically play as a video if it is among the 92,000 that are being added.

Vevo, a joint venture between venture between Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group with a strategic investment by Google, has quickly become the go-to source for music videos, and has grown significantly in the last year partly because of its effort to get on more televisions. But Xbox One has been a holdout.

This might explain why.