Media Player (Windows 11)

Media Player
	Component of Microsoft Windows
	Media Player in Windows 11
Introduced in	Windows 8 (as Xbox Music)

Media Player, formerly Xbox Music in Windows 8/8.1 and Groove Music in Windows 10, is a media player by Microsoft that can stream and play content locally. It is served as the successor to the old Windows Media Player, although the latter is still available in Windows 11. It started to roll out to all users on 15 February 2022.

History[edit | edit source]

Xbox Music was announced during Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference along with Xbox Video to tie in with the pending release of Windows 8. The move was intended to position the Xbox brand as the company's main entertainment brand. Both of these services launched on 16 October 2012, 10 days before Windows 8's release to general availability.

in July 2015, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps would be rebranded as Groove Music and Microsoft Movies & TV respectively to tie in with the release of Windows 10. This move was intended to disassociate the services from the Xbox brand, making them more inclusive to non-Xbox platforms.

After the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass subscription service, music purchases on Microsoft Store and the associated iOS and Android apps, the app was reduced to a simple local music player.

In November 2021, Microsoft announced the Media Player app for Windows 11 and began to roll out the revamped app to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel, replacing the Groove Music app. It is intended to replace the legacy Windows Media Player app and the local video playback functionality of the Microsoft Movies & TV app. The app was rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel on 3 February 2022 and 2 weeks later, it was rolled out to all users on 15 February 2022. The Media Player app would later be rolled out to Windows 10 users in January 2023.