• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 4, 2012

Another online music platform is coming to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console, with Monday’s announcement that Slacker’s personal radio service will be available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers later this year.

At the same time, Microsoft announced its own music service for the Xbox 360, Xbox Music, which will give users access to over 30 million tracks on the network, as well as via Windows tablets and phones.

The Slacker Radio app will be available for free from the Xbox Live Marketplace for Gold subscribers, giving them access to Slacker’s portfolio of over 200 curated and hosted stations, including ESPN Radio and ABC News and official stations for music festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

Slacker claims to have a music catalogue 10 times the size of rival online audio platform Pandora.

All Slacker’s stations can be personalized by the listener, and Xbox Kinect allows users to control programming through gestures and voice commands. The app is also available for mobile devices and in-car listening via smartphone. In November of 2011, Ford announced it would make Slacker available in new cars via the Ford Sync AppLink. The Slacker app integration allows drivers to store music for listening in areas where they don’t get cell phone reception.

Other online audio platforms have partnered with Microsoft’s Xbox Live network in the past. In October 2011 Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio app became available for free to Xbox Gold subscribers. The partnership gives Xbox Live Gold members access to iHeartRadio’s 800+ live broadcast and digital-only radio stations, from 150 cities around the U.S., as well as custom stations and other personalized listening and programming features.