Microsoft Zune Pass Ads Hit Apple iTunes On Price

At the outset, the premise of the ads seems reasonable.

The narrator points out that at Apple's price of $1 per song, users would have to spend $30,000 to fill the latest 120-GB Apple iPod, which has the capacity to hold roughly 30,000 songs. "At a buck a song, they'll run out of money before they run out of space," the ad claims. "I don't know about you, but I don't have 30 G laying around for music."

That's where Microsoft's Zune Pass supposedly comes in. The subscription music service touts a price tag of a mere $15 per month, which then provides consumers with a lifetime worth of songs.

Well, not really.

Here's the catch. The Zune Pass service allows its users to temporarily download an unlimited number of songs, but they can only keep 10 songs per month -- which actually averages out to $1.50 per song if the user chooses to keep all 10 songs. For the same 30,000 songs, Microsoft users would ultimately have to pay $45,000. Oh yeah, and at 10 songs per month, it would take them 250 years.

Perhaps the narrator has Biblical longevity and about $45,000 laying around dedicated solely for his music collection.

Meanwhile, Apple iTunes gives its consumers the option to own everything they download for a mere $1 per song. And most would probably agree that there's something very desirable about owning, instead of leasing, one's media.

The ad comes just as the blogosphere speculates that the ZuneHD could be released sometime over the summer. And, of course, there are plenty who are more than willing to believe that Apple products, including its well-established iTunes Store, are once again playing price point elitism.

But in this case, it just doesn't wash.