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NTT DoCoMo gets flat-rate Napster music downloads
Try as they might, over-the-air music downloading services have generally been received with tepid responses from many wireless subscribers. That may change in Japan soon, as wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo will be offering the "Napster To Go" wireless music downloading service. While this sounds uneventful, the awesome detail here is that for a flat monthly fee (¥1,980, or about $16.70), NTT DoCoMo customers can access a wireless on-demand download library of over 300,000 tunes -- and download said tunes to their heart's content (the PC music download service from Napster features about 3,000,000 titles by comparison). Although NTT DoCoMo customers will see a 300,000-strong library of 3GPP-encoded titles, but we're not sure if file expiration or anything as heinous as that will be in effect here. Let's hope not.
AT&T teams up with Napster, again
AT&T and Napster have joined hands to offer customers access to some three million songs for a year via Napster To Go. This 180 dollar freebie -- if, of course, you have the right plan -- will allow subscribers to download, organize, and create playlists on a PC and then sync them to their handset or compatible music device. This offer is a bit of a rehash from back in November 2004 when Cingular owned AT&T, but this time instead of 14.95 a month, it's free (and we love free). Reading through the list of qualifying plans is a bit of a daunting affair, so our advice is to hit up your local bricks and mortar AT&T shop on or after the April 1st launch for the lowdown.
Napster's microSD Napster To Go kit for Japan
Think Napster isn't serious about being big in Japan? Well check this from the former P2P darling. No, it's not tradeshow shwag -- it's microSD storage (and USB cable, a couple of adapters, and Napster logo stickers) that will cost ya a big fat ¥10,000 (about $82) premium for the privilege of advertising their service on Hagiwara Sys-Com's 1GB card, or ¥5,000 ($41) for the 512MB model. Apparently, Napster won't be pulling punches in support of their recently launched direct-to-mobile download service with NTT DoCoMo. The new cards and adapters allow select handsets from the FOMA 902i and new 903i series of devices to get in on Napster to Go which requires a microSD card for syncing. Of course, any microSD card will work but why cloud the issue with facts? Still, having recently boosted revenue guidance for the quarter, perhaps Napster just like Big in Japan has to exit their home turf to get super... once again.[Via Impress]
Napster dives into DAP-land with two new players
We're not sure if they're just embarrassed for some reason, or if the PR wheels aren't quite in motion yet, but Napster ever-so-quietly released two new DAPs today -- the first to bear their branding alone. The two models look fairly generic, though nice, and neither is an incredibly obvious rebadge from what we can tell -- which makes us all the more curious as to why Napster isn't parading these things around. Right now the players are only available as a special deal with a one year Napster To Go subscription, with the 256MB flash player going for the low low price of free, and the 1GB version (we're guessing flash as well) a mere $50. If you were planning on locking yourself into a $15 a month Napster payment anyways, it doesn't look like you could go too wrong here, though we have very little info on the players other than capacities. But if Napster has managed to design these reasonably slim, and with some decent battery life, we think they might have an attractive offering on their hands.
Napster going to Japan
We first heard about Napster Japan itself when it was announced last fall in a partnership with Tower Records, but it looks like we now have a few more details on the service and a rough launch date. It's now set to launch sometime this fall and it'll be a flat rate service, although exactly what that rate will be has yet to be decided. The service itself will apparently be the same as in the U.S., with both basic Napster as well as Napster To Go for transferring music to portable devices. And it looks like they're already lining up support, with NTT DoCoMo just announcing a few days ago that they'll be offering Napster support on their new phones being released this summer. You will, however, still have to download music to your PC first, then transfer it to your phone.
