The imminent extinction of Zune dedicated hardware won’t come as a surprise to anyone who keeps up with Microsoft entertainment news it’s still sad to see the old hotness go by the wayside. As a part of the rollout for Zune Music Pass, today Microsoft update Zune.net. For the first time in Zune’s history no dedicated device is on it.
Above is a screenshot of the new products page an there isn’t a mention of a device to be found. Microsoft has also kinda soft of rebranded Zune as a whole with Zune.net only referring to “Zune Music + Video” something that we’ve never seen anywhere else. Here’s to the Zune 30, 120, 4, 8 and HD. You will be missed.
Update Looks like the disappearance of the Zune HD from the website was an accident with Michael Yeager of the Zune team confirming that it was in fact in accident.
Source Zune.net via Tromboneforhire on Twitter
I’m still using my HD, and although i have a WP7, i’ll keep using it
I love my ZuneHD and use it for my music also, instead of the Zune on my WP7. just not the same and the radio does not work on my WP7 either. Too bad they did not invest more in it.
I thought this might be coming, but it still saddens a part of me deeply. I personally feel the Zune devices were the best representation of Zune as a whole. They were colorful dedicated, and innovative. If they are making Zune solely a service they better do a hell of a job making the service better. Because incessantly faulty metadata in the software and half crapped completion in other areas really makes the service unprofessional. So to me if they then take the service and really dedicate effort into it then this move is a win, if they are just cutting of branches of the tree so to speak, soon all we’ll have is gnarly stump of a tree that was once beautiful and had potential to be great.
The Zune HD product page is still up actually.