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 application developed by Microsoft that can stream and play content locally. It is the successor to the older Windows Media Player application, 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 upcoming Windows 8 release. The move was intended to position Xbox as the company's primary entertainment brand. Both services launched on 16 October 2012, ten days before Windows 8 was made generally available.

In July 2015, Microsoft announced the respective rebranding of the Xbox Music and Xbox Video services to Groove Music and Microsoft Movies & TV as part of the initial Windows 10 release in an attempt 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 (along with the iOS and Android ports as well as music purchases on the Microsoft Store), the application was reduced to a local music player.

In November 2021, Microsoft announced and subsequently rolled out the Media Player rework for Windows 11 to Windows Insiders in the Dev channel, completely replacing the Groove Music application and deprecating the legacy Windows Media Player application while subsequently reintegrating the local video playback functionality found within Movies & TV. The rework was rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel on 3 February 2022 and was globally rolled out to all users on 15 February 2022.

The Media Player application was backported and rolled out to Windows 10 users in January 2023.