A new music studio feature will allow players to create their own unique songs and music and, via the 360’s online capabilities, share them with people around the world.
The launch of Guitar Hero: World Tour in the gall will come with a three song REM track-pack. Other big hits for the game are songs from Van Halen and The Eagles. Metallica has agreed to let its entire new album, Death Magnetic, be downloadable in its entirety exclusively for World Tour as well.
Hands-On Mobile and Activision also announced a new Guitar Hero cell phone game called Guitar Hero III: Backstage Pass, available for download now on most cell phone carriers.
An exclusive new title for the Xbox 360 is LIPS, to be released worldwide in the holiday season. Keiichi Yano, cofounder of development company iNiS, said LIPS is the first game that lets you sing from your own music collection. After plugging a Zune or IPod into the Xbox 360, players can sing along with their favorite songs.
Nintendo released some big music titles for the Wii as well. Their biggest reveal of E3 was Wii Music, slated for release late 2008. A brainchild from early Wii development, the game incorporates Wii’s new Motion Plus device to capture every slight twist of the wrist to create a very unique music video game.
Unlike games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Wii Music does not have buttons that coincide with musical notes, but rather hand movements that do. The Wii balance board can even be used as foot petals for the drum set.
Ultimate Band, coming holiday 2008 for the Wii and DS, is Disney’s companion release to last year’s Hannah Montana: Music Jam.
“Ultimate Band invites kids, tweens and teens to join in the jam session,” said Craig Relyea, senior vice president of global marketing for Disney Interactive Studios.
This game is focused on incorporating the male audience into Disney music games in the same way Hannah Montana: Music Jam welcomed females.
Instead of using physical representations of instruments like in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Ultimate Band uses the Wii Nunchuck and Wiimote and DS stylus to direct the instruments.
There are more than 30 songs available on each platform from artists like Paramore, Weezer, The White Stripes, and of course key Disney channel stars like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. All of the songs have been rerecorded so that they are kid friendly and also gender appropriate, so that a girl does not have to sing a song written by a male artist from a male perspective.
Disney is also releasing a karaoke-type game for the Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows-based PC called Disney Sing It for the holiday season. The game, directed towards a female audience between the ages of eight and 14, features more than 35 songs from hit Disney channel and Hollywood Records artists like Aly and AJ and the High School Music stars.
The songs are played along with original music videos from the artists instead of animated background images like other music-themed games.
Sony talked about their newest installment of the SingStar franchise released in May for the Playstation 3. Players sing along to hundreds of downloadable songs by using microphones that plug into the console unit. They can also attach the Playstation Eye to photograph and record their performances and then share them with the SingStar community.
John Guilfoil of the Blast Magazine staff contributed to this report
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