SingStar Sells 12 Million Units In Europe

Officials from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) have announced that sales of the SingStar franchise on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 have totaled over 12 million units in PAL territories – including Europe and Australia. The first PlayStation 2 title was released in 2004, allowing users to sing along to music videos via bundled microphones, in the style of traditional karaoke. The game proved an instant success in Europe, where several new versions are released every year themed to particular musical genres, decades and collections aimed at specific European countries. Although fourteen different iterations of the game have been released in the UK, so far only five have been launched in the U.S., where sales have not been as robust, and the PlayStation 3 version of Singstar is debuting on May 20th – although exact figures for the region haven't been made available. The series sold 5 million units alone in SCEE’s 2007 financial year, following the release of the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Rather than relying on new retail releases for additional songs, the PlayStation 3 version allows users to download new tracks using microtransactions. SCEE reports that over 1 million songs have been downloaded so far via the online store. At the same time, My SingStar Online, which allows users to post videos of their own performances, has attracted 140,000 registered users who have shared over 20,000 videos that have been watched a total of 2.5 million times. “The term ‘social gaming’ is widely recognized in 2008 – however, it was relatively new when we launched the first SingStar title in 2004,” said Mark Hardy, director of product marketing at SCEE. “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,” he added.