Will Last.fm Be Free For All Xbox Users?

The announcement at E3 that Last.fm was coming to XBL was pretty big, because it will allow people to turn their Xbox into a jukebox for parties, or just to chill and listen to music. Seeing as how last.fm is basically a free music service, one would expect the same thing when they loaded it up on their Xbox, right?Well it seems like that might not be the case for everyone. According to Christina DeRosa who is a general manager for XBL:

“Silver users will be able access what we’re considering a trial period of three hours a month, which comes with video advertising. Gold users will have unlimited ad-supported access, so they can use it 24 hours a day. There will also be a premium offering on a subscription basis from Last.fm, that will be commercial free and will also have more sophisticated personalization features, like Loved Tracks.”

So if you are rocking a Silver account looks like you can only enjoy last.fm for three hours every month. I don’t know about you, but limiting a FREE music service isn’t the best way to go about integrating said service. Yeah, it is a nice way to try and get people to upgrade their accounts, but if the whole online gaming experience hasn’t already made them upgrade, why do you think unlimited access to last.fm will?

Then there’s the whole Gold members will have 24 hours a day access with ads or the ability to upgrade to a premium subscription basis. So your telling me that XBL is getting paid through ads, yet you want me to PAY YOU a monthly subscription fee of $3 a month on top of my yearly XBL fee for no ads? I’m sorry, but if this is true, then XBL better become cheaper since I am already paying about $50 a year just to have access to Live.

Last.fm on XBL: free to gold subscribers, 3 hours per month for others [joystiq]