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With twelve million units sold across PAL to date – five million of them in
the Fiscal Year of 2007 (April 07 – March 08) alone – and the brand
now branching further into digital business
 via SingStore on
PLAYSTATION3, SingStar is going from strength to strength.
SONY Computer Entertainment Europe released the first SingStar
title on PlayStation2 in 2004, changing the way people interacted
with the PlayStation brand. Audiences who hadn’t been traditionally
interested in gaming could use PlayStation as a source of
entertainment. Since its launch, SingStar has turned singing
into a competitive game and has amassed fans of all ages across the
world. December 2007 saw the franchise move onto the
Current-Generation PLAYSTATION3 platform, alongside seemingly
unlikely bedfellows as
WWE SmackDown! Vs. Raw 2008 and
Call Of Duty 4: Modern
Warfare, breaking into a new business model of downloadable
extra content in which players have the option of purchasing
individual tracks by downloading from SingStore. SingStar
PLAYSTATION3 is also supported by several online features within the
game, notably My SingStar Online; an arena where fans can share
their recorded performances with the worldwide SingStar
community.
The SingStar community has embraced the new online elements
within the brand. In SingStore’s first four months of trading, one
million tracks were downloaded across the PAL region. My SingStar
Online has also proved to be a popular place for SingStar
fans, attracting 140,000 registered users who, combined with
visitors to www.singstargame.com, have shared over 20,000 videos of
their SingStar performances that have been watched a total of
2.5 million times. Mark Hardy, Director of Product Marketing of SCEE
said: “The term ‘social gaming’ is widely recognised in 2008 –
however, it was relatively new when we launched the first
SingStar title in 2004. That game entered the charts at number
one in many countries, allowing us to pioneer the social gaming
category and a new market of consumers who might not have bought
games before. We really are teaching the world to sing with
SingStar – and business for 2008 is looking excellent.”
Paulina Bozek, executive producer of SingStar added : “SingStar’s
success is built upon simple and entertaining gameplay. Historically
we have added new music tracks to keep the experience fresh but the
arrival of PS3 has allowed us to think differently. We can now take
advantage of the next-generation features to take the next step
forward in the SingStar experience. The launch of SingStore
and My SingStar Online is the realisation of this and the experience
is now more user-focused, personalised and interactive.”
SingStar was part of the catalyst for a new area of the
gaming industry that’s now attracting mainstream audiences and
taking the social phenomena to new and exciting experiences. Over
the past four years the titles added to the SingStar
catalogue have included a mixture of genre and themes including:
musical decades (SingStar ‘80s and SingStar ‘90s),
musical genres (SingStar Rocks, SingStar R&B,
SingStar Pop, SingStar Pop Hits) and musical themes (SingStar
Legends, SingStar Party and SingStar Summer Party).
All of these titles have continued to deliver sales as SingStar
collectors seek out the entire back catalogue.
As well as the international titles above, country-specific titles
have also been big sellers, with titles such as SingStar Deutsch
Rock Pop (Available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and
SingStar Latino (Available in Spain and Portugal) delivering
strong sales locally. SingStar’s commitment to localisation
has been the key to its success – titles are available with
localised tracklists for French, German, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Polish and
Croatian Speaking Countries. As the social gaming market expands to
include other titles such as SONY’s quiz spectacular Buzz!
the SingStar brand continues to lead the way in sales,
consumer brand awareness and product innovation. This year,
SingStar on PLAYSTATION3 even took three Guinness World Records:
Most Successful Singing Game, First Customisable Track in a Singing
Game and First Music Game to Let Players Record Their Performances
and Share Them Online. For all of this innovation, SingStar
remains one brand with the same core values. |
