Microsoft to discount Xbox Music by 50 percent in one-day promotion
The discount is part of Microsoft's 12 Days of Deals. The Xbox Music Pass streaming-music service normally costs $99.90 a year, but it will go for $49.90 on Friday.
Microsoft's Xbox Music service will be available at a discount for one short day this week, the company announced on Thursday.
Since December 8, Microsoft has been running its "12 Days of Deals" promotion on the Microsoft Store. Each day, the company provides a discount of some sort to customers. Starting Friday at 5 a.m. PT, Microsoft will discount its Xbox Music Pass service from its typical $99.90 annual price to $49.90, a 50 percent cut.
Xbox Music is similar to many other streaming-music services, including Spotify. The offering lets users stream 30 million songs to a wide range of products, including PCs, tablets, phones and the Xbox One. Like Spotify, the service has an offline-listening mode for when users are away from an Internet connection.
The Xbox Music Pass monthly plan is $9.99. Xbox Music launched in 2012 after Microsoft decided to replace the ill-fated Zune music offering.
That Microsoft will cut the price of its music service for a day might address some of the complaints users had when the company pulled the plug on the free, ad-supported version earlier this month.
Microsoft announced in October that it would end its free version and instead require all users to pay the $10 per month for ad-free listening. That price puts it in line with just about every other streaming-music provider offering ad-free listening.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Friday discount.