As of today, Zunes are no longer corporeal beings, Microsoft announced on zune.net. After five years of struggling uphill against a flood of Apple’s iPod products, Zune hardware is being discontinued, although the brand name will live on as the name of Microsoft’s media services.

Microsoft launched the Zune back in 2006, when Ars’ Nate Anderson called it “quite a compelling product,” though it showed “a strange schizophrenia of spirit” and its basic functionality was “crippled or poorly implemented”. Later versions of the Zune continued to improve but always seemed to fall short of a complete package.

The Zune branding was pushed through to Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace, where it eventually permeated XBox Live and Windows Phone. Microsoft says that, in the future, Windows Phone will be the center of its mobile music and video strategy; as a result, the company "will no longer be producing Zune players."

With the Zune gone, Microsoft has lost the potential to extend the Windows Phone platform to devices where consumers wouldn't face recurring costs or contracts, which Apple has in the iPod touch. Microsoft could still extend its mobile platform to non-phones, though the Windows Phone branding will make that a bit difficult.

The death of the hardware has been a long time coming, but Microsoft promises that current Zune owners will be able to continue their interactions with Zune services just as they do today. Likewise, any lucky patrons who recently placed an order for a Zune player through the Zune Originals website will still receive their shipment.