It’s well documented – people went crazy over Sony’s placing of the SingStar trojan horse on the PlayStation 3’s XMB when they shoved it on us in a firmware update towards the end of last year, but for the publisher and the studio, it worked.
The project has netted Singstar 1.5 million new users [via] since the October change. In comparison, there were 2 million users in the preceding five years. You might not like having that icon there, but for Sony, it’s a success.
The game, which is now free to play (with users just buying the songs they want) has a conversion rate of around 6%, with the discussion (at Develop today) by London studio director Dave Ranyard indicating that some have bought over a thousand songs.
Ranyard says that the team added lots more points of purchase (after watching a video, for example) and streamlined the whole purchasing system from six clicks down to three, removing as many barriers to entry as possible.
tactical20
I don’t mind the icon, it’s the music that auto-plays every time I turn on my ps3 without a game in the drive. Especially good at 3am when the TV is still loud from earlier in the day.
ron_mcphatty
There’s music? My icon is (as far as I can tell) silent. Maybe I’m wrong or maybe its because I’ve never used/updated it?
parryman
Mission accomplished, now remove pls sony
scavenga
My hatred for The Singstar Condom will never recede.