August 10, 2007

Lollapalooza 2007: Producer Ryan Hamlyn on SingStar’s Evolutions
By Louis Bedigian 

“We're constantly trying to innovate and deliver something new.”

When SingStar launches on PlayStation 3 in November, players will gain access to hundreds of downloadable songs that can be added to their playlists. Like its PS2 predecessors, you’ll get 30 songs with the disc, the first 15 of which are:

Blink 182 ("All The Small Things")
Britney Spears ("Toxic")
David Bowie ("Let's Dance")
Franz Ferdinand ("Do You Want To")
Ne-Yo ("So Sick")
Outkast ("Hey Ya")
Pixies ("Here Comes Your Man")
Radiohead ("No Surprises")
REM ("Losing My Religion")
Scissor Sisters ("I Don't Feel Like Dancing")
The Automatic ("Monster")
The Killers ("Mr. Brightside")
U2 ("Beautiful Day")
Weezer ("Buddy Holly")
Wolfmother ("Lovetrain")

(Note: The remaining 15 will be announced at a later date.)

SingStar PS3

“SingStar PlayStation 3 is really taking what we do best with [the series] – it’s the real artists, real music, real videos – we take that and put it on PlayStation 3,” said Producer Ryan Hamlyn. “Now we have the opportunity to do HD videos if they’re available.”

“SingStar PS3 allows us to have more community features, so we have the My SingStar online area where you can create your profile, upload your performances to share with your friends or with the community as a whole, and you can also go in and check out other people’s performances, rate those, or just have fun doing that.”

Then there’s the SingStore, which Ryan says will allow users to make their playlists very personal. “With 30 songs on a disc, you never really can please everybody. Some people like these songs or those songs, but with the SingStore, you can go and pick songs individually and download them individually and really customize your playlist to something you want to sing everyday.”

SingStar PS3

I know you can’t talk about the price of each individual track but that it will be competitive to existing music services like iTunes. In regards to that, you still have SingStar on PS2 which is a very important platform – how will that change over time? If I buy SingStar PS3 and have downloaded all the songs I want, do I really need the other discs?

Ryan Hamlyn: It just depends. Maybe if you already have the PS2 version you don’t want to re-download those. As far as PS2 goes, we’re definitely supporting that platform for years to come. So we have two [versions] coming out this fall [on PS2]. We have SingStar Amped and SingStar 80s coming out in September. Then we have more coming out next year as well. We also have something exciting planned for the fall that we can’t really talk about right now but will be able to talk about in the near future that will be near and dear to the hearts of SingStar fans around the world who don’t have a PlayStation yet.

For PlayStation 3 it’s all about the functionality. If we want to add functionality for different mini-games as a multiplayer aspect, or if we want to add different video playback or photo capture or different output capabilities or anything like that, we’ll probably have to put out another disc. That doesn’t mean that disc won’t be compatible with the disc we already have and it would definitely be compatible with all the songs you have. It’ll be seamlessly integrated together. We’re constantly trying to innovate and deliver something new for the people so that they can evolve their experience and have more fun, and that’s what SingStar is all about. It’s about having fun and getting together with friends and having a good time.

SingStar Amped

What about song conversion to PS3? You won’t be able to bring over songs from the discs of the current PS2 versions. But could this function be added to a future PS2 release for the gamers who have a PS2 now but may not own a PS3 for a few years?

RH: You won’t be able to rip them to the hard drive. What we have now is, the PS2 discs are already compatible with PlayStation 3. The one thing we don’t have that we’re looking into is disc swapping. Right now the PS3 is its own thing and technically we may not be able to do it. But it’s something we’re going to look into. PS2 disc swapping also doesn’t work on PS3 right now. That’s something we’re not incredibly happy about but we’re living with the technology and making the best of it. But if people have and enjoy [PS2] discs, hopefully a little more effort [in stopping and exchanging games] won’t deter them from playing their favorite songs from PS2.

Something I’ve noticed is that there’s a Rap Meter being introduced in SingStar 80s and SingStar PS3. Is it also in Amped?

RH: Actually the Rap Meter has been in the code from the very beginning in the American versions. It was in Rocks and Pop as well.

It was? I don’t remember that. No one else here did either. I reviewed it, played all the songs and do not remember that…

RH: It’s in there. Gorillaz has the Rap Meter. It’s definitely a feature we’ll carry through. We’re looking to incorporate it into as many songs as we possibly can.

How does the Rap Meter technology work?

RH: It’s actually a very sophisticated system where the Rap Meter actually recognizes if you’re saying the right word or not. And it’s checking the timing of when you’re saying that word. Those two things combined is how it’s scoring you in the Rap Meter. From there, some songs have more of a singing chorus, so we’ll switch between that and the Rap Meter. We’ll go back and forth. But it’s really judging you on how well you’re rapping according to the original version.

SingStar 80s

SingStar 80s has been confirmed for the States. Can we assume SingStar 90s is coming as well?

RH: We always look at the SKUs Europe puts out and decide what’s best for the US market. that’s really what we want to do, decide what’s best for the US market. If 90s [fits that market], we’ll bring it over. But with the song choices, we don’t always overlap. We [in the States] have SingStar 80s and Europe has 80s and we don’t have the same song list. That’s because we have different tastes and we recognize that. That’s why one of the key things we do when bringing the games over is look at the song list and say, “These songs are great, we want to keep these. But these we want to replace.” It’s not like, oh they put out 90s, let’s grab their disc. That wouldn’t sell very well here. We need to make sure that we meet the needs and tastes of our players.

Today you’ve announced half of the confirmed songs for SingStar on PlayStation 3. Tell us about those and the process of getting them into the game.

RH: For all SingStar games the process of choosing songs is about what songs are going to make the game best. It’s not about working with one particular record label. We don’t start with 30, we start with hundreds of songs. We have fights internally, “Hey I want this song, hey I want that song.” It’s really about getting that first initial wish list. From there we do some focus testing, we [talk to] people and try to get a variety of opinions.

Because there are only 30 songs on the disc, we want to get the songs that are going to appeal to the broadest audience. From there we send it to our licensing department, our A&R guy [Alex Hackford] from SCEA. They go out and try to license the songs. We always end up with more songs than we can use. Then the fight is between which songs are actually going on the disc. It’s funny because you’re trading, “I’ll give you this one if you give me that one.” It’s one of the greatest products to work on because who doesn’t love working with music? Then working with music in a game, it can’t be better than that.

SingStar PS3
“It’s not just another karaoke game. It’s a SingStar experience.”—Ryan Hamlyn

SingStar measures our vocal highs and lows. What other kinds of elements could be measured by the PS3 technology? What might our vocals influence?

RH: That’s something we’re exploring now, and as I was talking about before, we’ll always looking to add functionality. We’re always looking for more ideas to incorporate into the SingStar experience. New mini-games, maybe new ways to modify your voice when you play it back. Anything new we definitely want to try and bring in. It’s just about staying true to SingStar and the experience we’re giving but then about broadening that experience at the same time and bringing new things in.

We haven’t really done that so far on PlayStation 2. Functionality has stayed the same and it’s been more about bringing in new content with new songs. You know on the PlayStation 2 side, we don’t know but it’s most likely going to stay that way.

On the PlayStation 3 side, we’re just scratching the surface of what the console can do. Who knows what we’re going to come up with in the next year or next couple of years.

Thank you for your time, it was great talking to you.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

Lollapalooza 2007: Alex Hackford on Getting Licensed Music Into SingStar

Lollapalooza 2007: Producer Petro Piaseckyj on Buzz! The Mega Quiz - Interview

Lollapalooza 2007: Gaming at the PlayStation Tent 

Lollapalooza 2007: Blue October Rocks With GameZone - Interview

SingStar (PS3) Preview from GameZone.com 

SingStar Amped Preview from GameZone.com 

Buzz! The Mega Quiz Preview from GameZone.com

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