09-12-2007, 03:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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1st Generation Zune Enhancements Coming?
This is from a post Cesar Menendez, a member of the Zune team, did on the 7th of this month:
"A while ago I had said the recent announcement doesn’t change any of our plans – it doesn’t. We’re really confident about the lineup we’re building, and to the enhancements we’re bringing to gen 1 Zunes (no specifics to share right now). Until then, today is Friday, and my next post will contain a bunch of free music."
It baffles me slightly that Cesar would be talking about enhancements being made to the first generation Zune products when we're on the eve of the second generation products being released. Unless, and this is a very large "unless", the Zune team is keeping the core hardware so much the same that when the second generation Zunes come out the features will be 100% backward compatible with the older Zunes. In an ideal world, this would mean that whatever new features and enhancements coming out for the Zune 2.0 devices could be applied to the Zune 1.0 devices. This is certainly possible to do - Microsoft controls the hardware end to end, so if Zune 2.0 has enhancements to the menu system, more on-board codecs, etc., it might be backward compatible with the hardware we have here.
That's a highly speculative guess, but seeing as how the first generation Zunes have received no significant firmware updates since launch, and we're all wondering what the Zune team is up to (since it's clearly not firmware upgrades), maybe this is it? Talk about wishing on a star...I almost feel silly writing this up. But hey, if I'm right, you heard it here first.
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09-12-2007, 04:11 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 242
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Hmm. Wishing upon a star? Yes. Being a gen. 1 Zune owner myself, I like the sound of backward compatibility. Get 'er done boys! I want an update!
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09-12-2007, 04:14 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 242
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Ooh, here's a thought... Would providing feature updates to the legacy device once said Zune 2.0 is released negatively affect its sales? People might stick with their old Zune instead of picking up the latest and greatest. That might not be ideal for M$.
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09-12-2007, 05:28 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,432
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I'm sure at least one of the new Zunes will have an 80+GB hard drive as well as being thinner than the current brick like devices. Even with the new functionality, I can see the new ones being more appealing with those features 
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09-12-2007, 08:09 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 40
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It is good to know MS is not leaving 1st gen folks in the dust like Samsung does with the SportsCam. In fact because of Samsung's lackluster support i shall never buy another one of their products ever. With MS showing continued support the favor will be returned.
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09-12-2007, 10:53 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 4
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80 Gig?
As a current Zune owner I would love it if the new software or services (I hope new services) are 100% backward compatible. However, I get so much use out of my Zune that I wouldn't mind buying a new one for Christmas if it meant meaningful additional features or services.
I also agree 80gig would be great, but only if there was a reason for it. Without marketplace support for movies and without native lossless support, 80gigs is a bit much for 160k wma files. Does anyone agree?
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09-13-2007, 12:26 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrozema
Would providing feature updates to the legacy device once said Zune 2.0 is released negatively affect its sales?
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Well, Microsoft has only sold a bit over a million Zunes so far...so it's fair to say that the majority of the MP3-player-buying market are not Zune owners. The number of people that would get this upgrade and not buy a new Zune eventually can't be that big...
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