While the holiday season is usually a good moment to spend some quality time with your family and loved ones, that doesn’t mean that we all should put our various computing devices away during that time of the year. Indeed, the holidays will likely allow a lot of us to catch up with all the media, games and apps that we missed in the last couple of months, and fortunately Microsoft is here to help.
Today, the company announced various holiday-themed collections of music, movies, TV shows and apps in the Windows Store, and we’ve highlighted a few them below. While these items are not being discounted, they should hopefully still be something to please every single one of you.
Apps
- For fans of movies and TV shows, Netflix, Hulu and Sling TV should pretty much have everything you need.
- If you’re more into music and audiobooks, then you should give Audible, TuneIn Radio, Pandora and iHeartRadio a try.
- If the holiday season makes you more creative than usual, then you may have fun with PicsArt, Phototastic Collage, Sketchable or Disney’s Art of coloring app
- Lastly, there are also some great apps for foodies too with Openable, Yummly and So Cookbook
Games
While the Windows Store still lacks some of the most popular games out there (sorry, Pokemon Go or Super Mario Run enthusiasts), Microsoft has highlighted several quality titles such as the excellent Alto’s Adventure, Disney Crossy Road and Doodle God Blitz HD. Additionally, you can join Microsoft Rewards and earn 200 points for every dollar you spend in a nice selection of games including King of Thieves, Cut the Rope 2, Halo: Spartan Strike, Microsoft Solitaire Collection and more. As for Minecraft fans, the Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta has a received a $3.99 Festive Mash-up Pack featuring a new world and 21 holiday-themed skins.
Music
Microsoft has curated two different music collections, and the first one called Holiday Classics features popular albums from Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick, Jr. and more. The other collection called New Holiday Music includes more recent festive albums from Sarah McLachlan, R. Kelly, Kylie Minogue and more.
Movies & TV
For fans of animated movies, Microsoft’s Holiday Animated Favorites collection includes popular titles such as The Polar Express or Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. The company also curated a Holiday Family Films collection featuring Elf, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Miracle on 34th Street, but there is also a Non-Traditional Holiday Movies collection for those of you who enjoyed Bad Santa or Gremlins
All these collections don’t seem to be available via a dedicated physical Windows Store hub as of yet, but they are still accessible via the links above. It shouldn’t be long before we see them being featured, so do let us know if you have found something interesting in all these curated collections by dropping us a comment below.
