The singing game genre’s heyday is in the past, but Sony aims to reinvent it later this year by ditching the need for pricey peripherals.
Instead, the new SingStar utilizes paired Android and iOS phones and other devices as the microphones via a free mobile and tablet app. Older PlayStation 3 microphones are still compatible with the new PlayStation 4 game, but no longer required to try and match the pitch indicators seen on the screen. And the app will also work with PS3 versions of SingStar.
Throughout Europe(and South Africa), PS4 and PS3 players alike will be able to check out the new functionality later this year with SingStar: Ultimate Party, which features 30 songs on the disc and is priced at £23.99, with local pricing to be confirmed later.
However, in the United States, Sony will simply release a free SingStar downloadable game for PlayStation 4 with 10 demo songs included, and allow players to buy the individual full-length songs they’d like rather than pay upfront for a chunk of preselected tracks.
Sony says that songs previously purchased on PS3 will also be usable on PS4, and that the new-gen version of the game includes additional features, such as asynchronous online challenges and the ability to share info and screenshots to Twitter and Facebook.