SEGA removes After Burner Climax and Jet Set Radio from the Google Play Store

It was last week SEGA announced that they’d be removing a few key titles from across various mobile app stores as a result of some sort of quality control guidelines. According to SEGA, these titles — which they wouldn’t call out by name — no longer met their “standards” and would be pulled with the possibility of returning in the future.

Today, SEGA made good on that promise as we’re finally seeing the first few titles disappear from the Play Store. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as we thought. Looks like it was only After Burner Climax and Jet Set Radio SEGA gave the axe (at least for now), with the rest sitting pretty on Google’s virtual store shelves. iOS users weren’t so lucky however, and saw classics like every Super Monkey Ball title, Virtual Fighter 2, Streets of Rage, and more.

Both of the titles carried a price tag which wasn’t too bad considering they were full games with no in-app purchases. While it’s a shame to see them go, glossing over their Play Store ratings showed incompatibility with numerous Android devices. Seems SEGA didn’t want to put too invest any more time (or money) in getting these titles up to speed. It’s a shame, these were some of the better ones.

Anyone who had paid for and downloaded the games on a previous device should be able to still find them in your Google Play Store app for re-downloading whenever you like. For everyone else, well… you missed out.

[SEGA titles on Google Play]

Google Play Music gets free ad-supported radio stations and playlists curated by Songza

For a long time it wasn’t possible to use Google Play Music for free for anything other than uploading your own tracks, but that’s about to change. Google has announced a new ad-supported service that’ll allow you to get some tunes going without having to pay a dime.

First up are free playlists of songs curated by the music experts at Songza, which Google acquired last year. They have playlists for specific genres, decades and moods, so it shouldn’t be hard to find something you like. You can also create dynamic radio stations based on songs, artists and albums, sort of like Pandora.

Of course, you won’t be able to get full on-demand, ad-free access to whatever tracks you want whenever you want without having to pay, but this is a nice alternative if you can’t stand to spend per month for all-you-can-eat music. The service is US only for now (Google’s working on spreading it to more regions over time), and you can check it out today by heading to Google Play Music on the web ahead of the app’s update later this week.

[via Google]

How to listen to Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio station on Android

So, Apple Music is out as of yesterday. Whether it’s better than Google’s homegrown option Google Play Music All Access or fan favorites like Spotify is still to be determined. But it’s here, and if you’re curious about it you’ll soon be able to jump into it for yourself on Android.

Why not get an early taste today, though? It’s possible to experience at least one facet of Apple’s new service on Android, that being the Beats 1 radio station that features a never-ending broadcast of music — new and old — hosted by famous DJs such as Zane Lowe and even artists like Drake and Pharrell.

So how do you jump in? Simple: click this link, press play and enjoy. This was made possible thanks to Beats 1’s standard live stream URL being discovered by this crafty Twitter user. This certainly wasn’t Apple’s intended way of getting you to listen to their broadcasts, so don’t be surprised if this hole ever gets closed. In any case, we should have more official ways of gaining access to Apple’s music service as we inch closer to its Fall 2015 release.