Showing Off the Updates

With last week's Zune software, and firmware upgrade to the Zune, there's only one thing left for the Microsoft team...get the word out!  (Of course they can start working on version 2.6, but that's not nearly as fun).  Anyway, at the Mobius Seattle Conference, they're spreading the word:

Day 2 started off with a couple guys from the Microsoft Zune team giving us a run through of the recent 2.5 release that was announced last week. A bit of history (like the first model being essentially a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat) was given first for thos unfamiliar with the Zune.

I loaded the new Zune update on my Fujitsu U810 just after it was announced and was frankly blown away by how fast it runs on my Intel A100 800MHz processor PC. Besides the new TV shows and music videos, the major new improvement is the social aspects of the Zune. It was nice to get someone to walk through these aspects and I actually ended up buying a month Zune Pass to try it out more on my older Zune (and new Zune that I will talk about below). The new Social page lets you share and discover music from your friends (with friends added automatically to start with in case you do not have any). Up to 3 songs from each of your friends Zune Cards can be downloaded/synced to your Zune if you have the Zune Pass and it actually seems like a very interesting way to discover music. There are also reviews, 30 second previews, status updates, and more in the new Zune Social. There is also Windows Live Messenger integration so you can share what you are listening to with people you chat with. I would like to see a bit more integration with Windows Mobile and personally would love to be able to take my Zune Pass music with me on my Windows Mobile devices.

They showed a demo of a Galaga-like game that was rocking on the Zune that was made possible through the XNA platform. Games will be coming to the Zune in the future and if they look like the one I saw they could be a ton of fun.

So, they get the Zune 80 working better than ever, and now they're planning on getting games onto the Zune.  I wonder when my squircle becomes a controller...

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