Streaming music service coming to Xbox 360?

Microsoft announced a slew of Xbox Live announcements during its E3 2009 press conference including partnerships with Facebook, Twitter, and UK broadcaster Sky. During the press conference, the publisher also unveiled a deal with music site Last.fm (owned by GameSpot's parent company CBS) and announced that the Xbox Live Video Store would be renamed as Zune HD.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph yesterday, MSN executive producer Peter Bale revealed that the company plans to launch a new music streaming service in the UK "imminently." A Microsoft representative confirmed the deal to GameSpot sister site CNET News.com saying, "In the coming months, MSN is planning to launch a new music-streaming service in beta via its Music channel in the UK." Despite this confirmation, the spokesperson remained hush on the details. "At this stage, we won't be confirming the details behind this, but more information will be available soon and will be communicated in due course," they told News.com.

Will music streaming be coming to Xbox Live soon? Time will tell.

While MSN has partnered with media streaming services in the past, this announcement would be handled completely in-house, following its acquisition of mobile phone music service Musiwave. Bale said the service would be "similar" to Spotify, an already established leader in the media streaming space in Europe. Spotify's services are available on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux-based PCs, with plans to release apps on Apple's iPhone and Google's Android mobile OS.