Music can play a major role in elevating video games from being a good game, to a great one. Unfortunately access to video game music – especially from Japan – has historically been limited, leading fans to often resort to listening to covers of their favourite game soundtracks. A series …
Read More »Google kills off its ‘Play Music’ streaming service
Over the years, Google has become notorious for cancelling its products and services if they fail to perform up to the tech giant’s standards. One of the company’s longer-running services, Google Play Music, is now ending, instead being replaced by YouTube Music. In an email sent to its users, Google …
Read More »Classic Konami OSTs come to Spotify
Though the last few years has seen Konami shy away from the video game industry, the publisher appears to slowly but surely be working its way back in. Amid rumours of the return of its various dormant IP, Konami has now opened a Spotify account, allowing fans to finally listen …
Read More »The complete NieR and NieR:Automata soundtracks are now available on music streaming platforms
NieR, and its sequel, NieR:Automata are placed in high regard by many, due in part to their award-winning soundtracks. Until now, listening to these soundtracks through any music streaming service, was impossible. Square Enix appears to be embracing these services recently however, as following the announcement that the Final Fantasy …
Read More »Spotify set to finally get Siri support in iOS 13
Earlier this year, Spotify began taking aim at Apple with claims of anti-competitive behaviour and calling for an EU anti-trust investigation. Aside from the 30% iOS App Store tax, one of Spotify’s complaints was a lack of Siri support for its competing music streaming service and now several months later, …
Read More »Spotify implements tighter rules for Premium Family plan subscribers
In an effort to stay on top of the music streaming market, Spotify began offering a family sharing plan a while back. The idea is that you pay £15 per month and up to six users get access to Spotify Premium. This costs a lot less than the standard £9.99 …
Read More »Apple officially responds to Spotify’s EU antitrust complaint, defending iOS platform cut
Earlier this year, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the European Union, spurring an investigation into the platform cut Apple takes on purchases and subscriptions made through the iOS App Store. Apple has already explained its case in a public letter but now an official response has been …
Read More »The EU will reportedly investigate Apple over Spotify’s anti-competitive complaint
Back in March, we learned that Spotify had filed a new complaint with the European Union’s antitrust regulators, claiming that Apple’s App Store rules were anti-competitive. Spotify publicised this by putting out the open letter ‘Time to Play Fair’, which Apple swiftly responded to and tackled point by point. Now, …
Read More »Spotify reports its first truly positive quarter, as it hits 500 million downloads on Android
While Spotify is undoubtedly one of the most popular music streaming applications around, the company has regularly struggled to turn a profit. The release of its fourth quarter financial results of 2018 showed that all aspects of the company were in the black, a first for Spotify as it reports …
Read More »Spotify is now testing a ‘Premium Duo’ subscription
Spotify Premium has been facing tough competition from Apple Music over the last couple of years. In order to keep hold of that number one position, Spotify is testing out a new subscription option called ‘Premium Duo’, a middle ground between the regular Premium plan and the Family subscription. Currently, …
Read More »Spotify teams up with Google to give UK users a free Home Mini
Spotify has once again partnered with Google to give away a free Google Home Mini speaker to its Family Plan subscribers in the UK. The promotion is set to run until May 14th, but we expect stocks to possibly run out first given that users are netting the £49 device …
Read More »Apple and Spotify set to butt heads over EU antitrust complaint
Earlier this week, Spotify filed a new complaint with the European Union’s antitrust regulators. The complaint was levied at Apple, calling out the company’s App Store tax, limitations placed on iOS developers, app update approval process and more. Apple has since responded, stating that Spotify “wants all the benefits of …
Read More »Spotify launches in India as court suspends Warner Music Group’s injunction
After a year of planning and repeated legal clashes with Warner Music Group, Spotify has finally managed to launch its music distribution platform in India. The company has made a range of unprecedented changes to its service, redefining its free tier and premium payments in the country. Seeing India as …
Read More »Spotify is taking a zero-tolerance policy against ad blockers
Music streaming service Spotify is cracking down on those abusing its free ad-clad package by introducing a zero-tolerance policy against ad blockers. Any account caught breaching its terms of service will be immediately booted from the platform as of March. For those that don’t want to opt for Spotify’s monthly …
Read More »Spotify raises offline download limit to 10,000 tracks, users can download on up to 5 devices
Spotify has gone through a number of changes this year since opening its doors for public investment. The company cracked down on modded versions of its app, made some significant changes to the ‘free tier’ and now, premium members are getting a boost. Previously, there was a 3,333 track limit …
Read More »Samsung announces the Galaxy Home smart speaker in partnership with Spotify
Samsung has been pretty hot and cold when it comes to launching its own Bixby-powered smart speaker, once remarking that it would be unmarketable when compared with Amazon, Google and Apple’s iron grasp. Now, Samsung has made it a reality, announcing at the Galaxy Home with a more “conversational, personal …
Read More »Spotify set to show off mobile app changes next week
Update (17/04/18): Last week, we heard that Spotify was planning to make changes to its free tier on mobile. This news landed shortly after the company put itself up for public investment and disclosed that millions of mobile users were resorting to modded mobile apps to access better features. Now, …
Read More »Spotify is reportedly planning changes to its free tier
Spotify opened itself up to public investment last week and in the build up to that, we received some interesting news. Over two million mobile Spotify users resorted to modified versions of the app to access features locked behind a pay wall. Now in light of this, Spotify appears to …
Read More »Two million people used modded Spotify apps to access premium features for free
A few weeks ago, Spotify began cracking down on Dogfood, a modded version of the music streaming app for Android that allowed users to take advantage of ad-free listening for free. Now it turns out that around two million people were using this version of the app to skirt around …
Read More »Spotify is cracking down on modded versions of its Android app
As Spotify prepares to open itself up to public investment, the streaming service is beginning to crack down on potential piracy and app bypasses. Currently, Spotify has 159 million active users, with 71 million of those being paid subscribers. One of the key features of a premium membership is the …
Read More »Discord has teamed up with Spotify for music integration
While Discord has a plethora of features and improvements pegged to debut in 2018, one of the more surprising moves is its partnership with Spotify. The music service is now integrated into the chat platform, allowing users to link their accounts and showcase and share the latest songs. Discord users …
Read More »Microsoft is giving up on Groove Music, transfers users to Spotify
Over the last couple of years, several new players have entered the music streaming service arena, each one trying to take on Spotify. While Apple Music and Tidal are still trucking along, Microsoft has decided to throw in the towel, as the company has announced that Groove Music will close …
Read More »Apple Music has racked up 27 million subscribers
It has been around two years since Apple first launched ‘Apple Music’, its own streaming service set to take on Spotify. Since then, the service has expanded into offering original video content in addition to music and it appears to be paying off nicely, with 27 million people now subscribed. This …
Read More »Music streaming services call for European Commission to end ‘app store abuse’
It looks like rival music streaming services are getting sick of Apple and Google’s app store dominance, causing the likes of Deezer and Spotify to send in their complaints to the European Commission. The letter accuses Apple and Google of abusing their position as the largest app store holders, asking …
Read More »Spotify won’t be buying out SoundCloud any more
Earlier this year, word began spreading that Spotify was in ‘advanced talks’ to acquire SoundCloud, another music streaming service that focusses on user-made tracks. However, after much consideration, it looks like Spotify has decided to back out due to ‘additional licensing headaches’. This is all according to a source speaking …
Read More »Spotify user data shows up online but was apparently not hacked
This week, a Pastebin post containing hundreds of Spotify account credentials popped up online, leading many to believe that the music streaming service had fallen victim to some kind of hack. Information released included usernames, passwords, emails amongst other details but no payment information was leaked. However, it seems that …
Read More »Pirate Bay founder is concerned no one owns media anymore
The rise of streaming content has been a godsend for heavy media consumers. No longer do they have to faff with pirating content, or even downloading and storing it at all – they can just stream it and move on. But that has its own potential problems, and Peter Sunde, …
Read More »Spotify is moving its data over to Google’s cloud servers
This week, Spotify announced that it would be moving its business over to Google’s servers, taking over most of its data to the Google Cloud platform. According to those working at Spotify, this move was largely down to Google’s data analytics capabilities though some of Spotify’s business will stay with …
Read More »EU Comission rules Spotify as one of the best anti-piracy tools
As much as many media groups around the world have attempted to combat media piracy with the aid of legal action, take down tools and threatening letters in the post, more often than not it’s been shown that legal alternatives to piracy have had the greatest impact and now the …
Read More »Netflix is still against allowing offline viewing
Recently, Amazon Prime Video announced that it would be allowing its users to download shows for offline viewing, similarly to how Spotify allows subscribers to listen to their music playlists offline. This obviously raised questions for Netflix, which has been against offline viewing in the past. It turns out that …
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