We recently had a quick chat with the SingStar development team, and put some of your questions to them. Here’s what they had to say:
- Why isn’t all the SingStar PS2 back catalogue available for download on the store yet?
This is something we’re working on. We have had to re-process all of the tracks for PlayStation 3 and this in turn means we have to start a brand new clearance procedure. We are, however, ready to release them to the store as soon as each track has been cleared for use. As soon as each track is approved we’ll have them in the store as quickly as we can.
- What is the process for getting songs and videos onto the SingStore?
In much the same way as we work to get a song on a disc we start by submitting a wish list to our partners in the record industry. Once we have the appropriate clearances then we can start the SingStar process whereby we transcribe the audio, process the video and design test each song. Our tracks go through the same QA and localisation process as for a disc and then enter our publishing pipeline for the SingStore.
- Why aren’t certain artists on SingStar yet?
We like to think we already have the crème de la crème on SingStar though there are a few artists we’d dearly love to have who haven’t agreed yet. Hopefully we’ll see even more artists come on board in the near future
- Is the licensing process the same for the SingStore as it is for the PS2 version?
Some details are different in the world of online downloads but essentially it’s the same in that we need permission from all the relevant rights holders.
- Can I transfer the songs to my mp3 player. If not, why not?
This would certainly be a great feature! As with the SingStar discs the tracks we license and offer to our users are solely for use in SingStar, they have not been licensed as audio tracks and thus are not sanctioned for use outside of SingStar.
- Why aren’t there more songs from movie soundtracks?
We love soundtracks! Music videos from films often feature the actors and getting permission to use those famous faces is an added complexity. Where we can, we do and hopefully this will get easier in the future.
Head over to http://www.singstargame.com for more SingStar news.
Big deal. It’s been out months now and they seem to be releasing loads by certain bands and not the wider range. I like blur but don’t want that many of their songs as karaoke, I would rather have a wider choice to cater for more peoples needs when there is a get-together at my house.
Still very very disapointed.
Comment by Hartlepudlian — Mar 20, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Someone should have asked them that why on some HDTV (mines is a samsung)there is a 0.5 second lad when singing which really ruins the game????
Comment by shandogg — Mar 20, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
im sure people arent wishing the guys at singstar would answer these lame questions!
i would like to know why there was such a long wait for a singstore update, why was it not possible to have wireless mics, and why they dont date those notices on the front of the singstore!
its interviews like this that make you remember that threespeech is linked with sony.
shame and waste of an interview
Comment by andy — Mar 20, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
I don’t know who that 0.5 second lad is but he’s not welcome at my house.
I’d like to say a BIG thanks to Three Speech for getting these much-wanted answers. And it’s good to get straight answers that enlighten the situation somewhat… that’s all we’ve wanted, for a loooong time! Sony are getting pretty darned bad at keeping us loyal customers informed. It must STOP!
Three Speech, I have further missions for you if you choose to accept them….
1) When is PlayTV out? And how much will it cost? I know people that want it and some have thought “sod it” and bought a separate HDD freeview box instead (e.g. because they want it before the F1 season starts). Sony are losing money there by keeping us in the dark!
2) I bought a PSP partly for the GPS/Sat Nav functionality, I believe it is “Go! Explore”. So where is it? I keep getting lost, help!
3) Where, oh WHERE, is the DualShock 3? I’m hungry for another controller so I can play multiplayer! And so I can rumble again! It stinks that we aren’t even allowed to import one.
I’m not even going to ask about in-game XMB as that’s a different matter; the above are hardware add-ons, some of which have been available elsewhere for yonks; others have been promised but are yet to appear… my fear is that any of these could become the next PS2 HDD, which I was waiting for through the WHOLE of my PS2’s life… and I got mine on launch day.
Please tell Sony we aren’t thrilled to be left in the dark, treated like 3rd best, and generally ignored.
Cheers Three Speech and thanks again for the SingStar devs update, I feel happier now that I am informed. Just got to be patient, maybe one day I will sing Nirvana again…
Comment by Bentley — Mar 20, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
I’d like to know why my Monster video got removed after *3 whole months* on the gallery, a mention in the SingStar newsletter and featured on http://www.singstargame.com.
Ok, well I can see the legal ‘boralities’ of why. But come on chaps! Don’t promote something you then ban!
Comment by Tony Nibbles — Mar 21, 2008 @ 12:36 am
Q1) why are there so many mislabeled songs
Paula Abdould and that other crappy band aint RAP..
Q2) why is there a lot of crappy “indy-pop init,while there is a lot of eurodance,which can be licencend very cheap..
Comment by terrortime — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:04 am
and while we’r at it
the weekly embarrasment:
EU Store
* PAIN PSN-game(€7,99)
* PAIN extra personages
- personage Cookie (€0,99)
- personage Hung Lo (€0,99)
- personage Stanta (€0,99)
- personage Scurv Dogg (€0,99)
- personage Muffy (€0,99)
- personage Ginger (€0,99)
- Fun with Explosives- (Gratis)
* Stranglehold Map Pack (€14,99)
bevat 10 nieuwe kaarten en tot 21 extra figuren
* MotorStorm 2 Teaser trailer (175MB)
USA Store
Demo’s
* Condemned 2: Bloodshot Single Player Demo (713 MB)
* SEGA Superstars Tennis Demo (500 MB)
* Rock Band Earache Thrashpack ($5.49)
+ “Blinded by Fear†- At the Gates ($1.99)
+ “D. O.A.†- The Haunted ($1.99)
+ “Thrasher†- Evile ($1.99)
* Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08
- Doral Golf Resort - Blue Monster Course ($4.99)
- Maxed out Player ($2.49)
- Turnberry Golf Resort (free)
* MotorStorm 2 Teaser trailer
* Eye of Judgment “Set 2″ trailer
* Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Japan Intro Movie
* Ape Quest PS3 spec trailer
* Turning Point trailer
* Soul Calibur Character Reveal trailer
* Condemned 2: Bloodshot Launch trailer
* Gattaca Special Edition trailer
* Sleuth trailer
WHAT WAS THE REASON OF THE DELAY OF PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it is still in english,no additional languages,
meaning NO REASON for 4 months DELAY-STATION
SCEE ,i wanted to say STRIKE 1,
but looking what SCEE showed us the last year.
they’ve been stroke out all players in every conceding inning of the game.
Comment by terrortime — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:20 am
My only question was, can we transfer songs from out HDD (computer, mp3 player etc.) to use in singstar. if i already have the rights to use them to listen to i should be about to use them to sing to, i already do that in my own time.
Comment by Treefingers — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:38 am
@7, or even better,
import our collection of Singstar PS2 songs,
since we paid already over 200€ on the discs
but again, it’s sony ,so prob not/never
Comment by terrortime — Mar 21, 2008 @ 8:33 am
@7&8
You can’t transfer your own songs because you’d have to transcribe them as is stated above. And you don’t have the rights to use the artists work as material for a game. That called piracy.
As for importing your PS2 collections, again it has to be relicensed so your not getting it. And to be honest why should you? You bought the PS2 games for the PS2, whereas you now have a PS3 which needs PS3 games.
You can’t expect a free lunch all the time.
Internerds can be so needy…
roll, stick, bark…
Comment by katamari-ball — Mar 21, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Anyway back on topic
Great answers on Singstar there, its stuff I’ve been asking myself for quite a while. If someone was only as candid with the EU PSN store updates it would be appreciated.
Comment by katamari-ball — Mar 21, 2008 @ 10:07 am
Why did they lie in the first place?
Where is our compensation/freebies as way of reparation?
Comment by Ton Capone — Mar 21, 2008 @ 11:09 am
@9 Most tracks are in SD quality anyway,
while HD was promissed (or in sony language Pro-missed)
Ps piracy is using tracks which haven’t been licenced,since the licences are for Singstar,
the mentioning of the platform is irrelevant in this case,and should we, the buying customers,
not have to buy every track twice,
if they would have thought of it,we didn’t have to mention it,that importing PS2-discs onto PS3 would benefit us all..
but then again those indy-pop crap would only have seen 1 time the money,now they get it with every update..
btw:
with spending over 20K € into sony hardware & software since the release of PS2,
a free lunch would be fine,where can i get my coupon
i’m still waiting btw on the HD tracks and over 360 tracks available before year end 2K7,
hopefully they thought financial year 2k7 which ends in 2 weeks and we get the remaining 200 tracks
Comment by terrortime — Mar 21, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
The SingStore recently opened its doors in France.
Yeahhhhh !!!!
Comment by Pitichat — Mar 21, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
“we’ll have them in the store as quickly as we can”
“Hopefully we’ll see even more artists come on board in the near future”
“This would certainly be a great feature [for the future]!”
“hopefully this will get easier in the future.”
Err, so what’s exactly IN the game right now then?!
Comment by Zed Zee — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
“spending over 20K € into sony hardware & software”
You could’ve made a deposit on a house with that much!
Comment by Zed Zee — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
@3
I have a DualShock 3 that I imported from YesAsia.com I recommend them as it was only 10 days for delivery and it cost £25 including free shipping qwhich is cheaper than they’ll be when they eventually appear in the UK anyway!
@5
I know what you mean about the ‘rap’ section but I think they have to categorise tracks into those which have the ‘rap meter’ feature within the song, even though the song itself really isn’t rap at all.
Comment by TheShirts — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
If SingStar is a karaoke game, then they use something like CD-G format, I’m guessing.
This is how ’standard’ karaoke machines work and if you wanted to do the same with, say a notebook PC, your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive would need to be CD-G compatible.
Not all CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives have CD-G compatibility to begin with, so it’s already difficult to do it on PCs, let alone a console.
If it’s a similar process (this “transcribe” they mention) for PS3, then I wouldn’t hold my breath for being able to use one’s own audio CDs/MP3s - they’re not the same format, although MP3 does have a Karaoke version that can be used on PCs, it’s called MP3+G.
If you want to do it on your PC, the best I’ve seen is Swift Elite: http://www.tricerasoft.com
If Sony use CD-G/MP3+G, then you could use Tricera’s CD-G Ripper to bring in your own tracks, but I doubt Sony would be that generous.
Sony are in it to make money out of the game and the subsequent downloads. I wouldn’t hold my breath for it to be in a standard format (like MP3+G or CD-G), nor for user’s own music collections to be usable.
Comment by Zed Zee — Mar 21, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
@the people who want to use their own MP3s and stuff from computers on SingStar - your MP3s and CD&G discs are just the music (and maybe subtitles or whatever), they can’t ever work in SingStar in their current format as they haven’t got the note information in it that SingStar needs (pitch, length, singstar golden note, sung/rap section markings, etc).
Although the idea is very simple, there’s a lot more data than just the music to make the game work.
It is a bit of a shame though that we can’t copy our existing PS2 SingStar songs onto the PS3.
Comment by Rick — Mar 21, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
@12+18
The licenses here are for specific editions of the game. So if its Mr Big - To Be With You it was initially purely licensed for Singstar Rock Ballads. Any use of this outside of that application is then unlicensed and would be considered piracy.
What you are asking is that London Studios should have had the foresight to license these for both the PS2 fixed product AND a “potential” PS3 download product. I imagine any license covering potential future uses would be much much more expensive.
Comment by katamari-ball — Mar 21, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
@19 again
step 1) could they expected that after PS2 a PS3 was coming?
step 2) could they have expected that the Disc import of the PS2 versions of the game was good to have as standard on the PS3 version also?
step 3) could they have expected that the licensing could have been done as”Per Sold item” within the Singstar-group,with a basefee of the minimum sold items (eg 100.000 Discs * 0.50€ per track)
then the remaining Questions:
Where are the promissed Wireless Mics??
Where are the HD-video clips
Where are the remaining 200 Clips before year end 2007 (financial ?????)
Can the “Investors” still expect an update to allow the already purchased discs to be used on the PS3 platform,most likely to use them within the programm..
answers:
Q1)Pro-Missed
Q2)Pro-Missed
Q3)Pro-Missed
Q4)Don’t care since we already took your money
Comment by Terrortime — Mar 21, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
I’d like to know when the wireless mics are coming out, this is the only thing stopping me from buying the game right now…I don’t like the idea of my PS3 being torn off the hi-fi rack during a dunken party!
Comment by Andy — Mar 22, 2008 @ 9:55 am
Has anyone noticed that certain songs are coded up better than others?
How do we report this back to London Studios?
If they are reading this, please look at Manic Street Preachers “Design for Life” - the chorus in particular - the timing of the notes bears no resemblance to how the song is actually sung. If you sing to match the on-screen notes, then play the video back, it’s almost comical…
I know it’s not a lag issue (at least with my TV) because the rest of the songs are fine. This one in particular really sticks out and makes it almost unplayable…
Comment by Kevling — Mar 22, 2008 @ 11:03 am
@ 4
Yo Tony! As I commented on your singstar profile - get complaining to SCEE, they reinstated one of my videos for me due to there being nothing wrong with it. Its silly how trigger happy some users can by when voting offensive content “for fun”.
Comment by elephant.stone — Mar 23, 2008 @ 8:57 am
All I want to know is what happened to the wireless mics?
Comment by Linzoid — Mar 23, 2008 @ 11:19 am
Yeah, it’s all gone very quiet on the wireless mics which is worrying. I love breaking out singstar but the effort of cables everywhere on a console that is otherwise nice and clean and wireless puts me off sometimes. Also, if you have a big crowd round playing, it’d be so much easier to be able to just toss the mic to the next player and not worry about knocking drinks over with the wires!
Comment by TheShirts — Mar 24, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
naw - Guitar Hero III all the way
\m/ o_0 \m/
Comment by mobiletone — Mar 24, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
terrortime, I’m sorry but what you expect from Sony in terms of licensing is to much. According to your argument every ps2 singstar user would have had to pay more money for what at the time was a theoretical product, on a theoretical system, without any guarantee that the ps2 user would ever buy the console or the game. It would be the same as asking you to pay more now in case Singstar comes out on a theoretical PS4
Comment by John — Mar 25, 2008 @ 10:06 am
@26 Spot on! I don’t think our friend Mr Time is going to understand unfortunately.
roll, roll, ting
Comment by katamari-ball — Mar 25, 2008 @ 10:33 am
can i put my singstar disc in my pc??
Comment by sydney — Jul 21, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
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