The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 may be enemies in the retail market, but that doesn’t mean there is true behind-the-scenes animosity. Both Microsoft and Sony are businesses, and each will make the best decision for its bottom line. The profits matter more than silly gaming wars, and turning down a good deal makes bad business sense.
To that end, Microsoft has partnered with Sony’s Gracenote service to power music matching in Xbox Music. Now when a customer plays a locally stored song on a Windows 8 or 8.1 device, Gracenote will recognize it, and Xbox Music will make the track available in the cloud. This means it can now be played from any device anywhere — providing Xbox Music is available on the device. This includes, not only the new Xbox One, but also Windows Phone, Android and iOS.
Music matching is not new to Xbox Music, but the Gracenote integration should considerably improve the service. The Sony-subsidiary dubs itself “the industry standard for music recognition”. The service even claims to be able to detect subtle differences present is various versions of the same track, such as album version and radio edit. This will certainly heat up the competition with Google Music.
