My SingStar Online
Thanks to everyone for reading our blog and to all of you who responded to Paulina's request for song suggestions. Some of your suggestions such as Hoobastank - The Reason, Europe - Final Countdown and Maroon 5 - This Love have already appeared on previous PlayStation 2 versions of SingStar over here in Europe, but you'll be able to download these gems (and plenty of others) from the SingStore.
Those of you who read my last blog posting will hopefully now recognise the unannounced game that I'd been playing. It was LittleBigPlanet and it's going to be a monster hit. If you haven't seen it in action, you need to check these videos of the GDC unveiling and a playthrough of one of the levels.
So that's LittleBigPlanet, but what's happening in the world of SingStar?
Well, last time Paulina talked about progress with the development of the SingStore. This week, I thought I'd tell you something about the other big feature for SingStar on PlayStation 3 - My SingStar Online.
The idea for My SingStar Online came along very early in the development of SingStar. We were spending some time researching how people were playing our game and we kept finding photos and videos of people's SingStar parties. People were using sites like Flickr and YouTube to share their experiences. We thought this was great and we wanted to capitalize on this and give users the chance to share their performances from within the game. Obviously, with Flickr and YouTube, you're relying on someone having a digital camera, access to a PC and the technical knowledge to be able to upload their content. We wanted to enable the user to share their experiences and then continue playing the game in as seamless a way as possible - and so the idea for My SingStar Online was born.
When playing SingStar, if you have a USB camera plugged in, the game will record a short section of video and it will also take ten photos during your performance. The game also records your vocal performance. After you finish singing, you can check out all of your media and you can choose to save it to your HDD and then upload it to My SingStar Online.
When you upload, you can choose to share your performances with everyone in the SingStar community or, if you're shy, you can choose to just share with people on your friends list. I think it's going to appeal to a wide range of people and a lot of different people will be uploading - if you're a bit of a diva, you'll want to show off your vocal talent. If you're an entertainer, you'll be uploading videos of you doing something stupid. There really should be something for everyone in My SingStar Online.
So, in the last few weeks, we've been testing My SingStar Online and it's been great fun. Lots of people on the team have been uploading their videos, rating snapshots and leaving comments on other people's profile pages. It's good seeing it all come together and we're starting to get a sense of how it will be when it all goes live. Exciting times indeed.
Although it's cool seeing performances on My SingStar Online, it's all the small things that are making my day at the moment and one thing that is making me laugh is the nationality selection in My SingStar Online. When you first go online, you're asked to create a profile, part of which is selecting your nationality. When you do this, your country's flag appears on your profile page. We've gone a bit over the top with our nationality selection as we want to make sure that everyone is represented. There are roughly 260 nationalities to choose from and some really mad flags. This week I'm pretending to be a SingStar from Antarctica.
Once it goes live, I'm really looking forward to finding out where people are from and to see which nations are represented in My SingStar Online. If you're from Christmas Island, Myanmar or the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, then say 'hi' in the comments section, so that I can prove to Richard that people do actually live in these places.
Talking of sandwiches, my diet and exercise regime is going out of the window a bit. I try to eat lots of dried fruit and nuts, but I'm not getting to eat properly in the evenings as I'm usually working late - and because I'm working late, I don't get to go to the gym in the morning. It's a bit of a vicious circle, but I'm sure that once the game is done and normality resumes, the diet and exercise regime will prove to be a winner. My goal is to be a rippling beef cake, just like Jean Claude Van Damme. I'll let you know how I get on.
Other exciting news is that after nearly a month of interviews, we've found a new junior designer to join our team. He starts at the beginning of May and he'll be joining our small but happy band of weirdos. He'll be joining the likes of Chazzie G, Mantonio and The Viresh Prince of Belle Air. Wish him luck - he'll need it.
I think that's about all the news for now. Thanks again for reading our random ramblings and please keep checking out this space. As a fun little game, I've mentioned five SingStar song titles in this blog. Let us know how many you can find.
I'll sign off with some relevant lyrics from one of the songs that will soon be making an appearance on SingStar - see if you recognise it...
"I've seen so much I'm going blind and I'm brain dead virtually".
Nordic Game: PS3 SingStar inspired by "mass customisation", says Bozek
Patrick Garratt 10:13 (BST) 15/05/2007
Sony producer highlights importance of choice
Speaking in her keynote at this morning's Nordic Game conference, Paulina Bozek focused on "mass customisation" and how current trends have influenced the development of the PS3 instalment in the SingStar series.
"We are on the cusp of a big shift in media consumption and media production," said Bozek, who is executive producer and game director for the franchise. "We are already living and working in these kinds of conditions and this will permeate our work even further."
Her speech, 'My Everything: From playlists to profiles and virtual worlds, mass customisation and explosion of choice and creativity', focused on the importance of allowing huge amounts of choice to users.
"There have been some big media shifts recently and the landscape of entertainment has changed," she said. "MySpace is really the new MTV. TV is online, music is digital, products are tools and players are becoming creators.
"Clearly there is some kind of a big shift going on. It's a new era of consumer participation."
Bozek showed "the coolest powerpoint in the world" to the audience in Malmo, Sweden, flashing up brands such as Second Life, PlayStation Home, NikeiD, iPod, Starbucks, Facebook, EA's Tiger Woods, and Media Molecule's recently announced PlayStation 3 community game, Little Big Planet. She spoke at length about the “unbundling” of content for users before showing off the new SingStar in action.
"Our major innovations for the next gen platform are SingStore, which is an online store that allows players to create their own playlist by downloading songs of their choice, and My SingStar Online,” she said. “This is a community platform for SingStar fans to upload photos and video and audio to share with friends."
SingStore was shown working, while Bozek laboured the point that many SingStar users are not traditional gamers - so her team was careful to make buying tunes from the service as easy as possible, with the user never having to leave the game.
PS3 Singtar will launch with 350 songs, with more than 100 expected to be added every month. Bozek showed Shut Up by the Black Eyeds Peas and Atomic by Blondie running on SingStore, flicking through tracks by Cindy Lauper, Destiny's Chield, KT Tunstall and Gwen Stafani.
The game is "nearly finished," said Bozek, and will ship this summer, but the American fell short of discussing costings for downloading tracks.
"We're going to be announcing our pricing quite soon , but I can't announce it today," she said.
