AUDIO STORY: Karaoke video games winning points with teens

By Leah Sorensen and Leah Sorensen

Neon lights line the walls. Tense bodies pack the room. A disco ball or two hang from the ceiling. A little Aretha Franklin gets butchered by a wannabe star. That’s the karaoke of the past. Instead of heading out to karaoke bars, teenagers are taking this Asian import into their own living rooms. ThreeSixty’s Leah Sorensen reports.

Elena Miller is a junior at St. Paul Academy and Summit School. She’s an alto in her school choir. And last winter, she began doing karaoke on her Wii video game system.

“I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of how karaoke worked. I thought it was kind of corny how people would sometimes — like in movies you would see them standing and singing and sometimes they would sound really bad and I would just hope that I didn’t sound like that,” she said.

Karaoke’s not just something drunk guys and girls do at bars anymore. The appeal of karaoke video games is growing.

“Karaoke Revolution” was the first singing game to become a hit in 2003.

That’s according to Greg Miller, he’s an editor for a video game review website called IGN.

Greg says that these games are hot in the United States, but across the pond, they’re on fire. One game, “SingStar,” has sold 1.5 million units in the United States and more than 12 million units in Europe and Australia.

Greg said karaoke games are an outlet for releasing your inner rock star, and that’s what makes them popular.

Greg isn’t really sure if these games are taking away from bar karaoke’s popularity, but he’s stopped going. Plus, playing at home means you don’t have to wait as long to do your best Celine Dion.

“I have a couple of friends that we play this game a ton when we’re together and we’ve kind of started this almost ‘American Idol’ season. The first time we played it we called it season one and then the next time we played it we called it season two and it just got to be kind of a party for all of us,” she said.

While Elena sings, she watches a taller, sexed-up version of herself on the television screen. With long, black hair swinging behind her, Elena’s avatar shimmies to the music.

Feeding off the cheers from the virtual audience, her character’s movements match the beat in Elena’s voice.

As the lyrics scroll across the bottom of the screen, sometimes the image above switches to avatars that look like judges Simon Cowel and Paula Abdul.

For Elena and her friends, doing karaoke isn’t really about being goofy or letting go of inhibitions. They play to have fun together. But they monitor their scores in friendly competition and practice to get better.

Elena is already a strong singer. She solos at her choir concerts. Elena believes playing karaoke video games with her friends makes her singing stronger. Elena’s even thinking – not too seriously – about auditioning for “American Idol” someday.

For ThreeSixty, I’m Leah Sorensen.