Sony (NYSE: SNE) has announced that the long-awaited Spotify app will launch on PS3 and PS4 later today, and that the app will be exclusive to PlayStation systems “for the foreseeable future”.

The PlayStation Music app, which taps the power of the music-streaming service Spotify, is free on both PlayStation consoles.

An active PlayStation Plus isn’t required and it’s free to listen to music, however a premium subscription is offered for $9.99 a month that blocks out ads and improves stream quality. Sony is offering a free 30-day trial for the service.

The app will be available to download on the PlayStation Store, but most users will find it already on their console, replacing the Music Unlimited app on the main menu.

Using PlayStation’s new Spotify app, users can easily listen to customized playlists and music tracks without going through the hassle of switching between the pesky Music Unlimited and the game session.

Sony has locked down exclusivity rights for Spotify as well, signalling that app software has joined as a major contributor of the timed exclusivity console wars.

“PlayStation [consoles] have gaming exclusivity,” Sony Computer Entertainment Europe UK marketing director Murray Pannell told Eurogamer.

But how long with the timed exclusivity last? “That’s to be decided exactly, but certainly for the foreseeable [future].”

While Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox One won’t get access to Spotify, it does have its own premium console-based music streaming service called Xbox Music Pass. The service is priced at $9.99 a month and features cross-platform streaming across various devices, and even supports offline streaming.

The Spotify PS4 and PS3 is a win for Sony because it replaces their awful Music Unlimited service and lets users actually listen to music while playing a game. But in terms of competition, it isn’t a big deal to Microsoft, considering it has its own unique multi-platform music service.

Along with the live TV streaming service PlayStation Vue, this move into a more consolidated music streaming service fits in with Sony’s major new rebranding focus.

It’ll be interesting to see how app software is leveraged in the future to bolster each console brand, and how it fits in with each company’s growing ecosystem.

Also before you hand over your credit card information to Sony, be aware that the company doesn’t have the best track record in regards to protecting your info, and is constantly hit by hackers. Buyer beware!

The post Spotify PS4 And PS3 App Launches Today, Is Timed Exclusive appeared first on VR World.

The Internet has changed the business model of music, and streaming services like Spotify has altogether changed the game again. While per-song or per-album orders were popularized by Apple’s iTunes, the ubiquity of mobile broadband connections and smartphones has also paved the way for streaming services to dominate, where music tracks and albums can be streamed on-demand.

Popular music streaming service Spotify has recently disclosed financial results for the past two years. With double growth during the period, with over $1 billion in revenue, the company has proven that the streaming business can be viable for all stakeholders involved, including artists, music labels, the platform and the users themselves.

Spotify was recently in the news after Taylor Swift and her Big Machine Records studio pulled out her entire catalog from the service, after Spotify denied to ban free access to Swift’s songs. Swift and BMR argued that the streaming service is not giving artists enough due, and that Spotify was essentially making money off the artists’ and songwriters’ work. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the company’s business, saying it actually reduces the negative effects of music piracy by offering easy access to music in both free and paid models, whilst paying out royalty fees to songwriters and artists for their work.

Recently, we learned just how much Spotify earned and shared from these activities in the recent years. In a consolidated financial report published in Luxembourg and first disclosed by The Guardian, the company cites revenue figures of €746.9 million (about $932.5 million) for 2013, up from €430.3 million ($536.6 million) in the previous year. This is a 74% growth across Spotify’s businesses around the world, where it operates independent subsidiaries in certain markets.

The company has reported a rise in its operating losses, however, from €80 million ($99.9 million) in 2012 to €93.1 million ($116.2 million) in 2013, or a 16.4% growth. These account mostly for licensing payments — something that Swift and company say should actually be higher. Meanwhile, the company has posted a consolidated net loss after tax of €57.8 million ($72.2 billion). This has narrowed down from the previous year’s €86.7 million ($108.2 million) loss, although this was largely from the company posting “fair value gains on derivative liability,” or a rise in stock value over the said period.

What’s interesting to note is that Spotify cites a majority of its revenue to have come from paid subscriptions, rather than ads. As of November, Spotify reports to have 50 million active users, up 39% from about 36 million by end 2013. Paying subscribers were up from 8 million in 2013 to 12.5 million month-to-date. The company has cited that 91% of its revenue comes from these subscriptions, as opposed to advertisements on the free accounts.

“We have already proven that we’ve created real value for our users, and we know that the more time people spend with our product, the more likely they are to become paying subscribers,” said Ek in a statement. “We believe that we will generate substantial revenues as our reach expands, and that, at scale, our margins will improve.”

Still, Spotify’s free service continues to be a starting point for paid subscriptions. “Our free service drives our paid service,” Ek earlier wrote, highlighting that 80% of the company’s premium subscribers started out with the free subscription. It is here where Ek argues the value of providing free music to users, because denying free access will also reduce the likelihood of signing up paying users.

Spotify is reportedly planning an initial public offering, although this has not materialized yet, and will likely be pushed to the coming year.

The post Spotify's Billion Dollar Business Comes Mostly From Paid Subscriptions appeared first on VR World.

Normally, when a company violates something such as Net Neutrality it generally is in the company’s best interest and they are looking for ways to make things more profitable and less valuable to consumers. A perfect example of that is with what Comcast is doing to Netflix (and others) in terms of requiring them to pay for prioritization in violation of Net Neutrality. This ultimately hurts Netflix and Netflix users that might be on Comcast, resulting in everyone but Comcast losing. Now, T-Mobile as part of their Uncarrier 5.0 and Uncarrier 6.0 initiatives made an announcement that they would be allowing users to stream music for free, meaning that if they don’t have an unlimited data plan, streaming music won’t count against their data plan.

Now, this move by T-Mobile is clearly very pro-consumer as it gives consumers the illusion that they’re saving money and data by not paying for music streaming, however there is one limitation to this new rule. First, it needs to be one of the following applications: iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker, and Milk Music. They’ve also opened voting to allow users to pick two applications that they believe should be included as part of this free music initiative.

But there’s one problem with all of this, it effectively violates the principals of Net Neutrality and prioritizes one certain application’s traffic over another’s. Specifically, it rewards the already established an existing apps with the right to not penalize users for using the service while still treating the rest of the music apps on the market as second class music citizens. This means that an upstart application will naturally have a harder time competing with the Pandoras, the Spotifys and the Rhapsodys of this world. I mean, the fact that Google Play Music isn’t included as part of this list is already a bit peculiar, but even so, it means that if you’ve got an upstart music app that might be better than all of the rest of the established apps those companies already have a leg up on you in terms of not using a person’s monthly alotted data.

There is no denying that these music services use up a lot of data and if you use Spotify at very high quality for an entire month, you could easily rack up 1GB or 2GB of data usage, so for some this clearly comes as a godsend. However, I’m just not sure if T-Mobile realizes what they’re doing in terms of Net Neutrality or if this is just part of the company’s plan to happily and cheerfully lul us into a world where they pick the winners and losers through cajoling us into thinking they’re actually saving us money. If so, then this is probably one of the best evil plans I’ve ever seen from a carrier and AT&T and Verizon should be amazed and probably take some lessons. Otherwise, I think T-Mobile should seriously consider opening it up to ALL music apps and allow developers to apply for music exempt status, otherwise the company will be in direct violation of Net Neutrality. And as much as it hurts me to say this, especially considering all the awesome things T-Mobile has done lately, they’re really fucking with Net Neutrality and how the internet and mobile apps should work.

The post T-Mobile's New Free Music Streaming Violates Net Neutrality appeared first on VR World.

As had been previously rumored, Apple was expected to buy Beats to the tune of $3.2 billion, and after all of the due diligence had been completed the end result was that Apple would be buying Beats for $3.0 billion. The deal is being broken up into $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in stock, which may end up valuing the deal even more if those who get stock decide to hold on to it and Apple’s [AAPL] shares continue to rise. According to Apple’s own CEO Tim Cook, “It’s all about the music.” Ultimately, Apple is buying a competing service to iTunes Radio which has struggled to compete with services like Spotify, Pandora and Beats Music. Many people within the music industry accept that Beats Music’s unique approach may be one of the best in the industry and allows for a very personalized experience while still giving good recommendations.

From Left to right, Jimmy Iovine, Tim Cook, Dr. Dre and Eddy Cue at Apple HQ

Apple is certainly overpaying for Beats Music as the entire company, including the Beats Electronics and Beats Music businesses for $3 billion. As we had stated in our earlier coverage of the purchase, the company was only recently valued at $1 billion in September through a $500 million stake in 50% of the company by Carlyle Group back in September of last year. Which means that Carlyle Group just walked away with $1 billion in profit for only holding a share in the company for less than a year. I don’t know about you, but I would certainly like to make $1 billion in less than a year by merely taking a stake in the company after they forced HTC to divest from them. Ultimately, HTC could’ve stood to benefit the most from Apple’s purchase of Beats, but unfortunately for them they were forced out of Beats. I also believe that Carlyle group probably had a pretty significant role in this acquisition and may have been the catalyst for it going through.

Either way, Apple now has its own headphone brand and music service, even though they state that in the current term Beats and Apple will remain separate brands. Ultimately, this is a huge win for Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre who will with his new found wealth probably forget that he never released his Detox album and probably leave it unreleased at this point.

The post Beats Seals The Deal with Apple for $3 billion appeared first on VR World.

Spotify has stated publicly that they had an internal data breach that resulted in some unauthorized access of their systems and internal company data and that only one user was affected. According to Spotify, this issue only affects Android users and as a result, they are asking Android users to update their Spotify Android clients whenever prompted by the Google Play Store. Spotify has made it clear that no users’ data was compromised outside of the single individual and that no login or bank account data was compromised during the breach of Spotify’s systems. However, they did make it clear that they highly recommend that all Android users upgrade their client over the course of the next few days.

While Spotify’s investigation has only turned up a single affected user as a result of this recent breach, I suspect that there are others that they simply didn’t find. The likelihood that only one users’ account was compromised over the course of this breach seems highly unlikely and that they discovered the hole in their security and have patched it with an update. iPhone/iOS users appear to be completely unaffected, but Android users should heed Spotify’s warnings about updating the app as well as downloading updates from unknown sources. The only source of an update for Spotify’s Android app should be the Google Play store and nowhere else.

As Spotify grows in popularity, there are going to be more attempts to break into the service’s databases and access their users’ data. The company’s CTO has already notified the public of this issue and that a fix has already been applied. Hopefully something like this doesn’t happen again, but I have a feeling that whomever gained unauthorized access to Spotify’s systems was not going after user data, yet. If Spotify’s claims are correct, then whomever attacked them likely was looking for some of their own proprietary information and may be back again to try to steal user data. Nowadays, user data is so poorly protected by companies that Spotify wanted to make it clear that users’ data with the exception of one person had no been compromised (to their knowledge).

The post Spotify Data Breach, Only One User Affected appeared first on VR World.