Karaoke That Lets You Compete

It's not just us.

"This is definitely a new thing," says Farah Deen, a 21-year-old student in Olney who is a fan of the series. "Most of my friends would not be caught dead in a karaoke bar."

But she and her friends stay up late to belt out their versions of "Material Girl" on her PlayStation 3. Sometimes, she says, the guys get more competitive about it than her female friends.

Nick Matheson, a 22-year-old gamer in Winchester, says he picked up the game on a lark, thinking his young nieces would like it. He and about a dozen of his friends used to get together to play slightly more . . . macho games, like the Madden football games, the Fight Night boxing games, or the bloody, World War II-themed Call of Duty games. Now, they're all SingStar fans, too.

Matheson says his friends were a little apprehensive at first, but after he and his twin brother squared off on a round of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," it was on. Matheson and his friends quickly grew obsessed with the game, staying up all night trying to beat each other's high scores.

"For about a month straight, every weekend, we were up till 4 a.m. in the morning singing every song," he says. "We're extremely competitive about it."

He has already pre-ordered his copy of SingStar 90s.

Sony doesn't seem to like it much if you refer to SingStar as a karaoke game in conversation. Jeff Reese, director of software marketing at the company, says the k-word has "negative connotations" among consumers.

Reese said the company hopes the game's broad appeal will help its game consoles crack a more mainstream market of consumers.

"We see this as appealing to a new audience for us," said Reese. "It really serves to bring in nontraditional gamers."

In a few months, Sony is set to launch the first PlayStation 3 version of the SingStar games, along with an online store for the game. While the SingStar games have been limited in holding about 30 tracks on each game disc, the PS3's hard drive will allow fans to buy and download as many songs as they like. Fans will also be able to upload their recordings.

EA has a new-ish social networking-style site based on karaoke, called the Sims on Stage, where users occasionally win perks from EA such as concert tickets. The company wouldn't say exactly how large its community is so far, but EA Vice President Ranah Edelin said users are posting thousands of new recordings every day.

"Not being a [good] singer doesn't mean you can't get up and sing," said Edelin. "As some of our users have shown."

I'll stay far away from any upload features, thanks, but that doesn't mean I don't get a complete chuckle out of rapping along to Vanilla Ice on the latest SingStar or trying to channel Ozzy Osbourne on the American Idol game on a Saturday night.

The real Simon Cowell, by the way, did not return calls requesting actual comment.