[Image Source: Telegraph.co.uk]

No, there are no Zombies coming to the Zune Marketplace… at least not yet.

Seriously, there is some downtime coming up. On Monday, January 25, after 10pm Pacific Time (1am for the ‘Right’ Coast) all Zune services (Marketplace, Zune.net, Zune Pass, Zune Video on Xbox) will be inaccessible on account of scheduled maintenance. All services should be online again within 24 hours. In the meantime, plan accordingly and be sure to get any music, movie, TV show, podcast available in the Zune Marketplace, at Zune.net, or Zune Video on Xbox before 10pmPT/1amET on January 25th. For the media already on your Xbox, PC, Zune, everything should continue to be playable during the downtime. Albums scheduled to be released on Tuesday, January 26, will be available as soon as all Zune services are back online.

When Zune services come back online all Zune users will need to update their PC software. In addition to the new software, owners of first and second generation devices (Zunes in the 4, 8, 16, 30, 80, and 120 GB flavors) will have a required firmware update. Zune HD owners will not have to update their devices’ firmware. It is important to note, this update is not related to new features announced at CES 2010.

Consider yourself informed and once 10pm/1am rolls around, Zune with caution. For more information keep it tuned to the Zune Forums.