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Why Robin Makes Batman Better Lips may be a bit of a hard sell for Microsoft. Mostly because both the PS2 and PS3 already do SingStar, and have been doing it for years. But hey, bundling free stuff never hurt a game’s sales prospects, so there’s no harm in Microsoft offering “one free song every week for two months” with every preorder lodged at GameStop. That’s eight free songs. The catch? You can’t choose from any eight songs, you have to pick from a list “chosen for you by the Zune team”. The Zune team? Nothankyou.jpg. If I have to choose songs from somebody else’s Zune list, it’s Dude Huge or bust.
Lips Pre-Order – Get Stuff! [Gamerscore]
Xbox 360 title Lips isn’t just a singing game. It’s much more. Keiichi Yano (pictured), co-founder of Lips developer iNiS, points out that the game is interactive in a way singing games haven’t been previously. Yanno explains:
When Japanese developer iNiS was confirmed to be attached to the Xbox 360 singing game, Lips, it might have felt like an odd project for the team. Responsible for rhythm classics like Gitaroo Man and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Lips looked simply like a SingStar clone, a fraction of the experience available in Rock Band.
“Rest assured there are things you haven’t seen yet”, we were told at yesterday’s Lips hands-on session. “There’s a lot of iNiS in there”.
What does that mean exactly? Lips might not feature oddball heroes like a talking robot dog and male cheerleaders saving the lives of the less fortunate, but it has the iNiS polish. Little things, like jump-in coop play — just shake the second mic to join an in-progress game — and a perfectly honed interface, may not be the sexiest of features, but it sets a solid foundation for Lips as a more than worthy competitor to SingStar.
One of the worst-kept secrets of Microsoft’s E3 address today was the announcement of iNiS’ Lips, a karaoke game for the 360. While it may not have SingStar’s suave, European sex appeal, it certainly looks to have a charm of its own, and including motion-sensing mics and the ability to use your own songs (Note: “The functionality of songs played from personal music collections will vary”) are nice touches. As for the above shot, well, I always said the first of these games to include Bust A Move would get my money. I’m a man of my word.
A title that’s guaranteed to be “announced” at Microsoft’s E3 Media Briefing this Monday is Lips, the iNiS developed answer to Sony’s SingStar. The musically inclined team behind Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents was previously rumoured to be behind the sing-along title, but consider it doubly confirmed now. Gamekyo not only lists the Japanese dev in its news story on the game, iNiS president Keichi Yanno can be seen busting what appears to be a rhyme in product shots of the game.
Other early shots give us a look at the Lips microphones that have lights on the shaft that “pulse to the rhythm of your voice” along with motion sensors that let players “dance, move or swing to score points”, according to previously leaked marketing documents.
Gamekyo lists Lips as shipping in November.
We’ve long been working under the assumption that Microsoft have conned Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents creators iNiS into developing a Singstar-killing karaoke game – called Lips – for the Xbox 360. An assumption that should next week be kicked up a notch. Variety’s Ben Fritz is reporting that “Microsoft will be debuting a brand new music/singing game”, which fits Lips’ mission statement pretty snugly. Having been almost continually disappointed by SingStar PS3′s tracklist, here’s hoping iNiS can get this one right. And if not, can at least get it wrong but with Ouendan’s homework-finishing, meteor-deflecting charm.
It looks like that Xbox 360 game that Elite Beat Agent dev iNiS said they were working on is likely rumored and then leaked karaoke title Lips.
Joystiq writes that an anonymous tipster tells them that iNis is the go to dev for the project, which makes a lot of sense what with their beat-game background and 360 project.
Rumour: Elite Beat-dev iNiS developing Xbox 360′s ‘Lips’ karaoke game [Joystiq]
