Microsoft had a movies and TV store?
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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They did. It was so awful with hardly any updates. I bought some things on it but usually when it was on major discount and connected to Movies Anywhere so I could watch it elsewhere.
I don't know why they had the same movie for sale... one with bonus features, one without... for the same price. Every other platform includes the bonus features automatically. Why separate them? Is there someone out there thinking, hmm... I like this movie, but I don't want the bonus features.
It was doomed to fail.
Movies Anywhere was the whole deal for me. With Microsoft connected, I used MA for its wishlist to indicate when things were on sale. Sometimes MS had a sale when other services did not! But that's it.
I own a couple that were only distributed in this region that way in an acceptable format for weird reasons related to localization. And then I moved internationally a couple of times and the Microsoft store REALLY isn't willing to understand that's a thing that can happen. It's been a bit of a mess and one of the multiple reasons to not use MS's store as a package/software manager in the first place.
Remember when Microsoft was telling shareholders that the Xbox multimedia ecosystem was going to dominate living rooms everywhere, then people stopped hanging out in their living rooms?
I can see Microsoft just being the Azure company at this rate. Then they’ll have to charge what it costs to run and a lot of companies will wish they had stayed cloud agnostic.
The business is basically thirds last I looked. Windows, Office and Azure.
Not sure how their purchase of platform companies they shouldn't have been allowed to buy plays into that. Thinking LinkedIn and GitHub.
They already make money hand-over-fist on Azure. Cloud computing is already quite expensive
So the Microsoft brand is just for show and it's actually called Azure.
Azure is tiny compared to the competition.
363 is much more successful comparatively. That said, its dying fast, with the utter garbage service upgrades, its enshitified hard into a rigid platform unsuitable for enterprises. So find/make a real alternative to EXO with the Outlook app: and 365 ends over night.
Azure is a very close second behind AWS and has nearly twice the market share of GCP in 3rd place.
I remember when they killed their Games For Windows store and the games I'd bought on there just went poof. Never trust Microsoft to keep a digital storefront around, they'll delete it all at the drop of a hat.
Like with Bitcoin, not your keys not your coin. If you don't hold it you don't own it.
Oh well. They should have brought back the Zune. And my Nokia windows phone in bright yellow.
I liked Zune. Microsoft is the real killer of their own demise. They have great products/ideas, but they just torch them before they take root.
always after the ever elusive profit margin. can't have a product that lives forever became there's no more profit after the market has been saturated.
they then take all the IP they have and either license the technology or sell it for a profit or loss depending on what is needed.
doesn't matter though, because the consumer always loses.
Ahem Sony ahem - referring to Minidisc which I thought was awesome but most Americans didn't care.
Laughs in 1200 disc DVD collection
laughs in 20tb raid10 multimedia storage
☠️
laughs in brain memory storing everything I've seen
Yes, you could rent or buy series and movies.
Remember when Xbox required a Live subscription to use the any streaming entertainment app?
I distinctly remember them failing a console launch spectacularly by (among other things) trying to pass it as a media center and talking about how great it is to watch TV on.
You'll still be able to access content. But for how long?
You’ll still be able to access content you own
Haha yes, that was never in doubt.
It will be if your using MS tech for it. They will pull the plug on that too. Just not yet, it's quieter to do it separately later.
On it's on disks you control in formats you can play with anything you like, its never yours.
If you think about it: Microsoft owns XBox, that has been one of the three major consoles for decades now. They own Windows, the world's most popular operating system. They own Edge, one of the major browsers. And they still failed to create a movie and TV store and shut down their music streaming service. Which is totally insane - that shit was bundled with fucking windows and Xbox and they still made it suck so hard that it failed