Topic: Music Unlimited

Music Unlimited's come on a bit hasn't it?

It's been a while since I used the service, but decided I wanted in on the music streaming thing so took the plunge. I chose it over Spotify and whatever else there is out there chiefly due to having access via my Vita.

The Android app isn't fantastic but much better than it used to be, and is quite useable day-to-day.

The Vita app (as with many of them) is better than the Android counterpart and boasts being able to play your offline stored playlists in the background in a similar way as the standard music player.

Has anyone else tried games with MU running? I had high hopes for NFS but the game takes a significant performance hit when MU is playing in the backround- I haven't tried NFS with just the music player in the background- does it suffer the same fate? (I know I know, try myself- but I don't currently have access to anything but a work PC).

I'm going to try MU in the background with a few other games that suit a custom soundtrack and see how they fare.

I use MU a lot but I've never tried it while playing a game. I frequently using the standard music app while gaming and it doesn't seem to have any effect on performance (if it does, I don't notice it).

I just tried to play WRC3 with MU open and I can't get MU to play a song with the game loaded. As soon as it plays and I minimize the application, it stops the music. I can't try with NFS since I already got my plat and sold it.

As soon as I finish this series in WRC3, I'll try with some other games (I don't know if WRC3 saves correctly).

Hey,

You have to have an offline playlist saved to use MU in the background.

I used the standard player on my first Vita to no obvious detriment of the game running at the same time, but that wasn't with NFS.

Having tried a few more games with MU in the background, it only seems to be Most Wanted suffering a performance hit. Just goes to show perhaps how much Criterion's pushing the Vita.

I'm quite enjoying Music Unlimited myself. I will be tempted to continue my subscription when my cheap first year comes to an end. The vita app is by far the superior version. The iOS version is probably a far last place. Lots of glitches and crashes, and listening to your "favorites" (my favorite station that only plays songs you have "liked") is impossible on iOS because it glitches and plays the same songs over and over, or the same 3 in a row or something like that.

The Vita version technically has no issues, and they should make all of their apps modeled after the little differences in the Vita app. But it still has perhaps the very biggest issue with Music Unlimited: how terrible it is at guessing what you want to hear. Play around with some of the stations that are supposed to adapt to your preferences. Make a station based on your favorite band, tell me how many songs they play that you've ever even heard before. I've literally sat and "liked" and "disliked" songs on stations for hours and it gets no better at guessing what I want to hear. Heck, it'll even play songs again I've said I don't like.

MU is great for building playlists and looking up what you want to listen to, but Pandora is by far the superior service for adapting to your taste and guessing what you want to hear. Their algorithm for choosing songs is intelligent and based on the "likes" and "dislikes" of other users that have similar taste to you. Music Unlimited seems to insist on playing b-sides and bands you've never heard of. Paying full price for the service next year won't be an easy choice if they don't fix their algorithm.

Tried with WipEout 2048, smooth as silk.