New U-Sing to take on SingStar

Karaoke hit U-Sing returns this year in Girls Night for Wii, Mindscape has announced.

The firm is confident its singing franchise – developed in partnership with Universal Music – can compete with Sony’s SingStar and Microsoft’s Lips franchise as the market’s most popular karaoke game.

We have all the ingredients: a fantastic game design, stunning track list and perhaps most importantly of all, a really strong partner in Universal Music,” said Mindscape UK’s general manager Mark Stanger.

Our aim with U-Sing has always been to work with Universal Music in creating a market-leading karaoke brand. We ended 2009 as the top-selling karaoke brand on the Wii in Europe so that was a pretty good start.”

U-Sing Girls Night boasts tracks aimed at a female audience, and will feature artists such as Rihanna, Duffy and Le Roux. 30 songs have been confirmed for the game, including a variety of popular tunes from Universal’s vast back catalogue.

I think Universal Music views the games industry very seriously and they have a huge amount to offer the sector, not least of all a world-leading catalogue of content – that’s always useful,” added Stanger.

Mark Krendel, head of business development from Universal Music UK added: Following the success of the first U-Sing title we’re delighted to be extending the range in this way and working with Mindscape to deliver an exciting and engaging proposition. I’m confident that with our combined strength, content and marketing channels, we’ve got an even more compelling product in Girls Night.”

Mindscape has also announced that Lunch PR will once again handle promo duties for U-Sing Girls Night following its contribution to the success of last year’s original, U-Sing: U’ve Got Talent.