Microsoft announced on March 18 that OneDrive will now be integrated with Xbox Music. As a result, users will be able to stream music from their OneDrive directly through the Xbox Music service. This means the music will be available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone.
Perhaps the best highlight of this new feature is that it’s free. Anyone who has a OneDrive account will be able to access their music without a Music Pass on the Xbox system, which costs $9.99 per month.
This feature is similar to what Apple (iTunes Match) and Google (Play Music) offer to their users. However, the services from those companies make local files accessible with a single cloud. Microsoft will have files available on both Xbox Music and OneDrive, the former service for playback, the latter for storage.
It’s worth noting that this functionality is not available on Windows 8. Users will need to upgrade to Windows 8.1 in order to reap the benefits. Additionally, OneDrive content will not be accessible through Android and iOS devices.
The 15GB of free storage in OneDrive will only store so much music. To counter this, Microsoft will add 100GB of additional storage if you happen to be a Xbox Music Pass subscriber. In terms of limits, you can add up to 50,000 songs to your collection, which is competitive with similar previously launched services.
This new integration will be available in more than a dozen different countries immediately, including the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. More information and details have been posted onto the Xbox website.
