We were right, Grand Theft Auto’s radio stations are indeed going to be monetized; but not in the way we initially expected. Instead, Yahoo! Games has unveiled a new digital music distribution model built right into GTA IV.
The system works something like this, according to Yahoo:
Advertised throughout Liberty City, the cheekily-named “ZiT” technology is built into the game’s mobile phone interface system. As players cruise around the world listening to the in-game radio, they can at any point ‘mark’ a song by opening their phone and dialing the number ZIT-555-0100. Gamers will then receive a text message with the song and artist names, and if they’re registered at the forthcoming Rockstar Games Social Club community site, they’ll find an e-mail waiting in their inbox with a direct link to a custom playlist on Amazon.com. All songs tagged “ZiT” will be stored here, available for preview and purchase at Amazon’s going rate of $.89-$.99 per track. Best of all, those MP3s are free of the Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitations imposed on files downloaded through Apple’s iTunes store and thus can be imported into any computer or digital device with no constraints.
Here, here for digital downloads and the lack of DRM — but I don’t really know why the system makes you bother with an intermediate PC. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 have media streaming capability, so why can’t we purchase and play the music directly from our wireless controllers?
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