Phil Harrison Tries To Explain SingStar To Yanks
Phil Harrison's a busy boy - dude's been everywhere in the news this week. And not exactly for the best reasons. So it's only fair he be allowed to go on the front foot for once, and try and explain to Americans why SingStar is so wonderful. From part III of his epic interview with N'Gai Croal:
N'Gai: Over here, it's still not as well-known why [Singstar has] been so successful in Europe. Why would you say it became a hit?Phil: First and foremost, in the U.S., SingStar Rocks! shipped in November, it's done incredibly well, it's just been one SKU. In Europe, we're up to the sixth major iteration, multiple local language variations. Probably the the thing that most people even in the U.K. don't recognize is the broad variety of local language variations that we did. There's a Croatian version of SingStar Rocks! I think we're up to our 40th different build with different languages. If you're going to sell music in France, it has to be French. If you're going to sell music in Italy, it has to be Italian, and so on and so forth.
I believe the reason why SingStar has done so well versus Karaoke Revolution is very, very easy to articulate. I don't know why Alex was struggling over that. The reason is we had real performances--real recordings with the real original music videos--and they had sound-alikes.
Right on the money, Phil.
Every time we post about SingStar, the comments are dominated by Americans talking about Karaoke Revolution. Next to SIngStar, Karaoke Revolution ain't shit, and while I don't like SingStar myself I can easily recognise it's been nothing short of a phenomenon in PAL markets.
If Sony can sell the PS3 version of SingStar to Americans, they'll sell millions of PS3s to people who otherwise wouldn't have bought one. Yes, i'm being serious. Don't give me that look. No doubt Sony realise this, and no doubt we'll see Phil and the rest of Team Sony shilling the product across America for all it's worth later in the year.
Loot: The Phil Harrison Interview, Part III [Newsweek]