Gamers will soon have the opportunity to moonwalk alongside the King of Pop.
Video game developer Ubisoft said on Monday it would release a new dancing-and-singing game featuring Michael Jackson this holiday season. The as-yet-unnamed game will be among the first to use Kinect and Move, the respective motion-detecting camera systems for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 due out later this year.
“Your goal is to dance like Michael,” Ubisoft marketing vice president Tony Key said. “Do what the guy on the screen is doing and you’re there. It’ll score you based on the quality of your performance.”
The game’s launch will roughly coincide with the November debut of a new album containing unreleased Jackson recordings. Versions of the game, which will feature songs from Jackson’s catalog, including Billie Jean and Beat It, will also be available for Nintendo’s Wii and the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable handheld consoles.
The announcement was made during Ubisoft’s Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference at the Los Angeles Theater. No footage from the game was shown, but dancers from Jackson’s This Is It tour took to the stage to perform a routine set to Beat It at the conclusion of Monday’s event.
“With the technology that is available today, you will be able to learn how to be as good as those guys are and even better,” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said.
It won’t be Jackson’s first appearance in a game. He starred in 1989’s action game Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.
Ubisoft has already found the right moves with the dancing game genre. The game maker’s Just Dance, released for the Wii last year, has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.
Rock Band developers Harmonix are also choreographing their own dancing title, unveiled at Microsoft’s press conference on Monday with a routine set to Gwen Stefani’s Keep On Dancing. Dance Central uses Kinect to detect players’ movements and translate them to a flashy avatar on screen.
On Monday, Microsoft detailed its new Kinect game technology, coming this fall for the Xbox 360 game console. Once known as Project Natal, the Kinect system recognizers users’ gestures and voices, so you can control on-screen avatars in racing, action and sports games just by moving your body.
Kinect will launch on Nov. 4 in North America, Microsoft said.
Prices were not disclosed, and it’s not clear whether Kinect will come with new Xboxes or only be sold separately. The technology works with existing systems, as well as a new version of the Xbox console that goes on sale next week. It’s smaller, sleeker and comes with built-in Wi-Fi and a 250GB hard drive. The new Xbox will cost US$299, which previously got you a hard drive with half the capacity.
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