Xbox Music was announced at E3 this year. The service is billed as Microsoft's "definitive music service" and rumors now place the launch date as October 26, coinciding with the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft Surface, and Microsoft's pop-up holiday stores. It seems as though Microsoft will have a busy October.

Xbox Music is a natural evolution of the Zune streaming service that Microsoft had previously tried. Now with Spotify, Pandora, and others being so successful in this market, Microsoft has decided to give it another try. The service will span Windows 8, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 8, something the other services don't currently do.

The spanning appears to go so far as to allow playlists to be shared across the drive, as hinted to by the "Save to Playlist" option that is visible in the leaked pictures online. Pricing seems reasonable and there is a rumor that there will be a free, ad-supported version for the cheap people among us, something I would appreciate very much.