After its initial announcement back in January, Sony is right on target with its intended “spring 2015” launch of PlayStation Music – its Spotify integration with PS3 and PS4 consoles. The update is now live for users across 41 major markets.
With PlayStation Music, you can stream music from Spotify and leave it playing in the background in the middle in of a game, creating a personal soundtrack of sorts. You can opt to play music from your Spotify account’s playlists, search for your favorite artists and albums, or browse through curated playlists from the Spotify team.
In our quick demo at the Spotify office in New York City, we could see that the transition between the game screen and PlayStation Music app was smooth. Just one click of a button brings up a settings menu to change the volume of music coming from Spotify so you can balance the perfect music-to-video-game sound ratio.
You can use the same button to skip or pause songs without ever leaving the game.
If you want to stay focused on the gaming experience before you, you can also pair your iOS or Android device with your PlayStation console and control music via Spotify Connect. This allows you or a friend to pair up a device with the console to easily adjust music in social settings, although it does require a Premium Spotify account.
PlayStation Music is now live in 41 markets, though Sony didn’t specify which markets were missing out on initial launch. The company said complications with bringing the technology to select countries limited the roll out, but it will continue to work on expanding this feature to all 58 markets Spotify services. Sony will provide the update to Xperia phones and tablets as well.
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