Lips date, price, tracks revealed

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 October, 2008

No lyrics for imported MP3s, though.

Microsoft has announced that Xbox 360 karaoke game Lips will be released in Europe on 21st November for GBP 49.99 / EUR 69.99.

That price includes two wireless, motion-sensitive microphones, which light up and can be used to strike poses and meet other gameplay criteria besides the wailing.

The platform holder also announced the 40-song on-disc tracklist, which includes Queen's "Another One Bits the Dust", Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees", Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" among, well, 36 others.

We're also told to expect a steady trickle of premium downloadable content on Xbox Live Marketplace, starting off with Estelle's "No Substitute Love".

The game will also allow you to sing along to DRM-free MP3s imported from your hard disk or USB music player, but speaking to GameSpot, Microsoft's Chris Esaki finally admitted that lyrics won't be available for these.

You might think that's obvious, but back at back at E3 when we went hands-on with Lips and interviewed Keiichi Yano, head of developer iNiS, we were told he had "a very compelling solution" planned - implying some measure of lyric support.

"Obviously we know people want lyrics," Esaki told GameSpot, "and that's something we'd like to deliver." In the meantime, Microsoft has said a "virtual music video" will accompany your performance.

In other words, it's all very much like Sony's SingStar, albeit with wireless mics and some extra gameplay designed by the developer of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Gitaroo Man and other excellent music titles.

We'll be bringing you a proper preview of the finished game very soon, and we'll be sure to compare it to SingStar in all the areas you're likely to care about when you're halfway through a crap Pinot Grigio at 9.30 on Saturday and Bertie's singing Corinne Bailey Rae again.

Here's the full on-disc track listing:

  • a-ha - "Take on Me"
  • Nirvana - "In Bloom"
  • Alicia Keys - "No One"
  • Peter Bjorn and John - "Young Folks"
  • Aly & AJ - "Potential Break Up Song"
  • Queen - "Another One Bites the Dust"
  • Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
  • R.E.M. - "The One I Love"
  • Ben E. King - "Stand by Me"
  • Radiohead - "Fake Plastic Trees"
  • Beyoncé - "Irreplaceable"
  • The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
  • Blondie - "Call Me"
  • Rascal Flatts - "Stand"
  • Chris Brown - "With You"
  • Rihanna - "Umbrella"
  • Coldplay - "Yellow"
  • Roxette - "Listen to Your Heart"
  • Depeche Mode - "Personal Jesus"
  • Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"
  • Destiny's Child - "Survivor"
  • Sheryl Crow - "Soak Up the Sun"
  • Dido - "White Flag"
  • Taylor Swift - "I'm Only Me When I'm With You"
  • Duffy - "Mercy"
  • The Bangles - "Walk Like an Egyptian"
  • Duran Duran - "Hungry Like the Wolf"
  • The Fray - "Over My Head (Cable Car)"
  • John Denver - "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
  • The Jackson 5 - "ABC"
  • Johnny Cash - "Ring of Fire"
  • The Police - "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
  • Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"
  • The Raveonettes - "Love in a Trashcan"
  • Lil' Mama - "Lip Gloss"
  • Trace Adkins - "Ladies Love Country Boys"
  • Lupe Fiasco (featuring Matthew Santos) - "Superstar"
  • Weezer - "Island in the Sun"
  • Maroon 5 - "Makes Me Wonder"
  • Young MC - "Bust a Move"
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • The-Bodybuilder #1 3 years ago

    First.
    MS in "liar-liar xbox 360's motherboard on fire" claim.
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/08 @ 08:33

  • Dizzy #2 3 years ago

    I am sure lyrics will be added... not an easy problem to solve THB. They would have to find out what song you are playing and that is not straightforward. The compelling solution probably is analyzing the music and cross referencing that with a database.... a lot of possible problems there. Better not to launch that if you are not 99% sure that it will work.

  • baardhimself #3 3 years ago

    I was excited about the feature of singing along to my own songs, but the way it is now it just plays your songs with a windows media player visualisation.. whats the point?! I might as well just sing along with my iPod on.

  • baardhimself #4 3 years ago

    I was excited about the feature of singing along to my own songs, but the way it is now it just plays your songs with a windows media player visualisation.. whats the point?! I might as well just sing along with my iPod on.

  • Dizzy #5 3 years ago

    >I might as well just sing along with my iPod on.

    It removes the vocals.

  • keyboardmonkey #6 3 years ago

    It's not getting purchased until the lyrics thing is sorted out, that was what really set it apart from Singstar, now it's just a copy of a game that's been out for years with a little bit of a rhythm (shake the mic) game added on.

  • Les #7 3 years ago

    Hope it does well if only to put pressure on Sony for releasing wireless singstar mics asap.

  • t8yman #8 3 years ago

    if you have songs on your ipod, you should know the lyrics - losers! ;0)

  • moggsy #9 3 years ago

    @ keyboardmonkey

    Wait for the review.

    Also, can you get Singstar on the 360? Nope you've got to pay £300 for a PS3. Lots of people are going to pay £130 for a 360 to play this instead.

  • skillian #10 3 years ago

    It removes the vocals.

    I get the feeling people are going to be disappointed with this feature too. Obviously it doesn't use the original studio tracks, so it will just reduce the mid-range to make the vocals (and any other instruments in the mid-range) quieter.

    Lots of home stereos have a "karaoke" button that does the same thing. Perhaps Lips will make a better job of it, but whenever I've heard the technique it has been distinctly unimpressive on all but very particular (less complex) songs.

  • Doctor_What #11 3 years ago

    So the killer feature won't be in the game? That's a no-sale for me then. Boo.

  • Masarin #12 3 years ago

    @Dizzy: Nah. Wouldn't be that big of a problem. There are already well working music recognition services on the Internet and Sony Ericsson uses it in their latest range of mobil phones/cellulars. The servuce just needs a sample of a few seconds to manage pin point the track. Lookup Gracenote and this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipe dia.org/wiki/TrackID for more info.

    It works like a charm. *bragging* I even developed some of the solution for Sony Ericsson. *end_of_bragging* :-)

    Then... why M$ didn't get off with this I dunno... maybe saving it for the next round to get the license agreements right?
    Hm... from that Wikiepedia entry it seems Sony has bought Gracenote... so I guess they (Sony) will be the ones with this feature then...

    Edited by 3 at 23/10/08 @ 09:41

  • Les #13 3 years ago

    "Also, can you get Singstar on the 360? Nope you've got to pay £300 for a PS3. Lots of people are going to pay £130 for a 360 to play this instead."

    For even less you can get a PS2 with Singstar and for much less you can just get the next SingStar version as no doubt a very significant portion of the target audience already has a PS2.

    I doubt that lots of people are actually getting a 360 for this but we'll see. Anything that gets me wireless mics for PS3 SingStar is worth it IMO...

  • skillian #14 3 years ago

    I wouldn't have thought recognising the song would be the problem, but surely there would be copyright issues? The lyrics of a song are copyrighted just like the music, so surely MS would have to pay a fee whenever those lyrics were displayed.

    However if that was the case you'd think MS would have known the problem all along and wouldn't have hyped the feature.

  • kinky_mong #15 3 years ago

    Wrong Young MC track! Should have been Know How, not that I'd buy it anyway.

  • Eighthours #16 3 years ago

    Leaving aside the singing-along-too-your-own-music mode, which I always suspected wasn't going to be quite what was hinted at - mainly because it's a month from launch and they still haven't shown the bloody thing - the tracklist is enough to seriously make me consider buying the game. Is it controversial to suggest that this is a better tracklist than any of the standalone Singstars?

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #17 3 years ago

    As Masarin said there are lots of solutions already available that can detect the music you are playing so it wouldn't be difficult. It might however be expensive to buy the database of track fingerprints. I suspect this is the problem for MS. Not only will it cost them big bucks to implement but it also loses them potential marketplace purchases if they do it too well. The money men aren't going to like this. I suspect they will wait to see if Lips becomes a successful franchise before deciding if it's worth dealing with (something that Sony can now justify in buying Gracenote.)

    As for removing vocals Skillian, that's not how it's done. You don't remove the mid-range (well not on it's own anyway.) You take the vocal stored on the left channel and use it to remove the same vocal on the right channel. Most lead vocals are set equally on each channel on a stereo recording to put the singer in the centre of the sound stage.

    Some high end vocal removers work really well, considering.

    As I said before, MS could really nail this by buying something like gracenote, flooding the marketplace with as many tracks as possible and implementing decent vocal reduction. I'd love it if they did as my PS2 is getting on a bit for parties and I can't afford a PS3.

  • moggsy #18 3 years ago

    @ les

    I'm sure Lips will be better than the PS2 Singstar for the wireless mics and downloadable tracks if nothing else.
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/08 @ 10:39

  • Les #19 3 years ago

    "I'm sure Lips will be better than the PS2 Singstar for the wireless mikes and downloadable tracks if nothing else."

    Better in your opinion (as well as in mine) but that doesn't mean the average karaoke game fan would agree or if they did think it worth the cost of upgrade.

  • jamespo #20 3 years ago

    they are obviously not going to add lyric support

    *maybe* lips 2 might have it

  • dr_faulk #21 3 years ago

    "I Wanna Be Sedated"

    Holeeee Shit. This is icing on a golden cake. I can't over-state how much I want this game.

  • Retroguyuk #22 3 years ago

    "You might think that's obvious, but back at back at E3" - doesn't anyone proofread their articles anymore? :(

  • Doctor_What #23 3 years ago

    @ dr_faulk: It's already available on PS3 SingStar as a download.

    @ Moggsy: Well... I wouldn't say the Lips will win through DLC. As dr_faulk just demonstrated, lots of these songs are already available as DLC for the PS3 SingStar. The wireless mics might be nice, but I'm not sure about the motion sensing thing - my girlfriend might spill the glass of wine in her other hand!

    It's great to finally have some competition for SingStar, but saying that Lips is going to be clearly better is a bit of a leap at this point. Sony's been doing this for years and I suspect not all those lessons can be stolen so easily. We'll see!

  • elisponge #24 3 years ago

    why would they add the lyric feature and miss out on all the extra money fro DLC.