Karaoke video games
Main article: Music video game#Pitch games
The earliest karaoke-based
music video game, called
Karaoke Studio, was released for the
Nintendo Famicom in 1985, but its limited computing ability made for a short catalog of songs and therefore reduced replay value. As a result, karaoke games were considered little more than collector's items until they saw release in higher-capacity DVD formats.
Karaoke Revolution, created for the
PlayStation 2 by
Harmonix and released by
Konami in North America in 2003, is a console game in which a single player sings along with on-screen guidance and receives a score based on his or her pitch, timing, and rhythm. The game soon spawned several follow-ups including
Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2,
Karaoke Revolution Vol. 3,
Karaoke Revolution Party Edition,
CMT Presents Karaoke Revolution: Country and
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol. While the original
Karaoke Revolution was also eventually released for the Microsoft
Xbox console in late 2004, the new online-enabled version included the ability to download additional song packs through the console's exclusive
Xbox Live service.
A similar series,
SingStar, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, is particularly popular in the European and Australasian markets. Other
music video game titles that involve singing by the player include
Boogie,
Disney Sing It,
Get On Da Mic,
Guitar Hero World Tour,
High School Musical: Sing It!,
Lips, the
Rock Band series,
SingSong,
UltraStar, and
Xbox Music Mixer.