Kotaku: Lips

A-Ha! ESRB Outs Lips: I (Heart) the '80s

Owen Good — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:30:00 EST

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Yes, yes, simmer down, I know you were all dying for another installment of konsole karaoke. Happily, the ESRB issued another of its fabulous spoiler alerts, letting us know we'll be wailing along with one-hit wonders sometime soon. More »

Xbox Live Launching Individualized Music Game Stores

Mike Fahey — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

Microsoft makes searching for downloadable songs for your rhythm games much easier today, with the introduction of individualized music game stores covering all the major music games. More »

These Are Lips' Number One Hits

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:20:39 EDT

Microsoft has confirmed the final lineup for Lips: Number One Hits, the sequel to the Inis-developed karaoke game that hit the Xbox 360 last year. You'll be able to tap into your inner Lady Gaga and MC Hammer this October. More »

Some Facts, Figures On Music Game Players

Luke Plunkett — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:30:00 EDT

Ever wonder how many Americans played a music game during the month of April? Well, we can tell you. 25 million Americans played a music game during the month of April. More »

360 Wireless Mic Stands Alone This Fall

Mike Fahey — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:40:00 EDT

Microsoft is taking the wireless microphone from their Lips and sending it packing, making its increased game support even more appealing by releasing it on its own this fall. More »

Already, Another Lips On The Way

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:30:00 EDT

It's barely been six months since the release of Lips, Microsoft's shameless swipe at SingStar's karaoke crown. And now, with E3 just around the corner, it seems it's already time for another Lips game. More »

Lips Gets New Edition In May

Mike Fahey — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:20:00 EDT

Microsoft's karaoke game Lips adds a ton of new music this month, but none quite as impressive as the New Edition Song Pack. More »

Lips Mics Will Work With Metallica, Rock Band 2

Mike Fahey — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Microsoft's nifty wireless microphones that were packed in with Lips just got a whole lot more useful, supporting Guitar Hero Metallica and soon Rock Band 2. More »

Lips Getting Better Scoring, Leaderboards, and Coldplay

Mike Fahey — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:20:00 EST

March brings a slew of fixes, features, and fan favorites to the Xbox 360 karaoke game Lips, with an early March title update delivering improved scoring and international leaderboards, just in time for Coldplay. More »

Lips Delivers Xanadu Magic For Valentine's Day

Mike Fahey — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:40:00 EST

The classic 1980 film Xanadu finally gets some video game loving, as Microsoft announce Olivia Newton John's "Magic" as part of their Valentine's Day downloadable content for karaoke game Lips. More »

January Lips DLC Finds That Lovin' Feelin'

Mike Fahey — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:20:00 EST

With nine new songs from the likes of Fallout Boy, The Pussycat Dolls, and The Righteous Brothers due out in January, the Lips song catalog should exceed 70 songs by month's end. More »

Pucker Up For Some Lips Downloadable Content

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST

Lips is getting its DLC act together, with Microsoft today announcing a raft of new tracks to be made available over the next few weeks. Most suck. But not all. There's still Bobby Brown. More »

Urban Outfitters Give Some Lip and a 360 to Boot

Brian Crecente — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:40:00 EST

Distressed clothes seller Urban Outfitters is running a contest for free Xbox 360s and a copies of Lips. More »

Lips Review: Kinda Puckered Up

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST

Let’s get this out of the way now. Yes, Lips is a shameless rip-off of Sony’s massively-successful SingStar franchise. More »

Lips Holiday Songs A Bit More Multicultural Than Singstar's

Mike Fahey — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:40:00 EST

While Singstar's holiday fare is fairly Christmas-centric, Microsoft's Lips takes the more politically correct path, offering up a little something made out of clay to help balance out the holiday cheer. More »

Australia Gets The Strangest Damn 360 Bundle You'll Ever See

Luke Plunkett — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:00:00 EST

We know Microsoft have gone bundle mad in Europe this Christmas, but until now, Australia had been spared. Until now. Take a look at Microsoft's "See, Hear & Play" bundle for the Australasian market. More »

Keiichi Yano on Lips, Innovation, and Drunken Karaoke

Maggie Greene — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:30:00 EST

There's a really fun interview up at Gamasutra with Keiichi Yano, chief creative officer of iNiS (the Ouendan series and Elite Beat Agents). The subject is ostensibly Lips, the recently released 360 karaoke title, but a lot of ground is covered in terms of game design and future potential. My favorite part of the discussion is when Yano gets into the decision not to include a fail condition, and instead allow (possibly drunk) warblers to mangle music to their hearts' content: More »

New Songs Hit For Lips Today

Brian Crecente — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST

Over the next two weeks motion-friendly Xbox 360 karaoke game Lips will be getting seven new songs to add to its 40 title repertoire. The first batch lands today, the second next week. More »

Tsk, And The Lips Trailers Were Going So Well...

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

And Microsoft USA were doing such a bang-up job of promoting Lips! Creepy robot heads, chirpy, disembodied lips...great stuff. A real step forward. Really knocking down the barriers preventing men from playing what's viewed as a girly genre. But these British ads? Two steps back. More »

Microsoft Creeps Us Out With Lips TV Spots

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:40:44 EST

Microsoft is aware that Nintendo is the company that "puts more smiles on more faces," so it doesn't bother trying to compete on the happy front. Instead, the company wants to invade your nightmares, filling them with hollowed out heads and disembodied mouth creatures. The company's newest creative torment is for the iNiS developed Xbox 360 singing game Lips, in which a man is haunted by a stalking pair of sentient, lyric-forgetting lips. The mouth beast travels across harsh terrain and unfavorable weather conditions to force the man to do his bidding — to sing A-Ha's "Take On Me" for the sadistic ambling maw's delight. The horror.... More »

Europe's TENTH Xbox 360 Bundle (This Time With Lips)

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:30:00 EDT

I picture Microsoft Europe not as a bunch of men in suits, but as a single man up on stage at a karaoke night. Dressed in his best Freddie Mercury white lycra and shelltops, belting out "DONT STOP ME NOW". Because, believe it or not, this is the TENTH Xbox 360 bundle Europe will be seeing this holiday season. Tenth. This one's aimed squarely at the casual user/lapsed Sony fanboy, as it offers an Arcade 360, a copy of Lips and your only chance of ever seeing the iNiS logo on the front of a console. More »

Lips Soundtrack, Gameplay Details, Platform Plans Revealed

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:30:03 EDT

Microsoft will attempt to steal SingStar's karaoke crown this holiday with the release of Lips, the Xbox 360 party game developed by iNiS, mostly famous for musical fare like Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents. Today, the company announced further details on Lips, including the 40 song strong soundtrack, new gameplay modes and further details on how you'll use your iPod or Zune in the game. More »

Preorder Lips, Get Free Songs

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:30:00 EDT

Lips may be a bit of a hard sell for Microsoft. Mostly because both the PS2 and PS3 already do SingStar, and have been doing it for years. But hey, bundling free stuff never hurt a game's sales prospects, so there's no harm in Microsoft offering "one free song every week for two months" with every preorder lodged at GameStop. That's eight free songs. The catch? You can't choose from any eight songs, you have to pick from a list "chosen for you by the Zune team". The Zune team? Nothankyou.jpg. If I have to choose songs from somebody else's Zune list, it's Dude Huge or bust. More »

Lips Makes Singing "Half A Rediscovery"

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:00:00 EDT

Xbox 360 title Lips isn't just a singing game. It's much more. Keiichi Yano (pictured), co-founder of Lips developer iNiS, points out that the game is interactive in a way singing games haven't been previously. Yanno explains: More »

Europe Is Microsoft's "North Star"

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:20:00 EDT

Between Xbox Live and Halo and some other stuff in between, Microsoft have done a great job at nailing down a hardcore market. Problem is, that hardcore market is a small one. It's nothing compared to the kind of sales Sony managed last gen, and Nintendo are managing this gen. So MS are convinced that, in order to sell more 360s and get more people on Xbox Live, they need to go after a more casual market. And how do they do that? Why, they look for inspiration from the biggest casual market there is: Europe.

The gameplay style in Europe is more casual, more collaborative and social. They're a key part of us getting the next 20 million on the service. We're asking how we become something that's relevant to everyone. I think Europe is the North Star, the sign that says 'here's what it looks like to broaden the service to everyone'.

That was Microsoft's Scott Henson, explaining that Lips might not be necessarily targeted at you, America. More »

Not Excited About Lips? Maybe You Should Be

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:20:55 EDT

When Japanese developer iNiS was confirmed to be attached to the Xbox 360 singing game, Lips, it might have felt like an odd project for the team. Responsible for rhythm classics like Gitaroo Man and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Lips looked simply like a SingStar clone, a fraction of the experience available in Rock Band. More »

Take A Look At iNiS' Lips

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EDT

One of the worst-kept secrets of Microsoft's E3 address today was the announcement of iNiS' Lips, a karaoke game for the 360. While it may not have SingStar's suave, European sex appeal, it certainly looks to have a charm of its own, and including motion-sensing mics and the ability to use your own songs (Note: "The functionality of songs played from personal music collections will vary") are nice touches. As for the above shot, well, I always said the first of these games to include Bust A Move would get my money. I'm a man of my word. More »

First Look At 'Lips', iNiS' Xbox 360 Karaoke Game, And Its Bedazzling Microphone

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:40:25 EDT

A title that's guaranteed to be "announced" at Microsoft's E3 Media Briefing this Monday is Lips, the iNiS developed answer to Sony's SingStar. The musically inclined team behind Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents was previously rumored to be behind the sing-along title, but consider it doubly confirmed now. Gamekyo not only lists the Japanese dev in its news story on the game, iNiS president Keichi Yanno can be seen busting what appears to be a rhyme in product shots of the game. More »

We Get It, Lips Will Be Shown At E3

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:40:00 EDT

We've long been working under the assumption that Microsoft have conned Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents creators iNiS into developing a Singstar-killing karaoke game - called Lips - for the Xbox 360. An assumption that should next week be kicked up a notch. Variety's Ben Fritz is reporting that "Microsoft will be debuting a brand new music/singing game", which fits Lips' mission statement pretty snugly. Having been almost continually disappointed by SingStar PS3's tracklist, here's hoping iNiS can get this one right. And if not, can at least get it wrong but with Ouendan's homework-finishing, meteor-deflecting charm. More »

Elite Beat Agents Team Working on Lips?

Brian Crecente — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EDT

It looks like that Xbox 360 game that Elite Beat Agent dev iNiS said they were working on is likely rumored and then leaked karaoke title Lips. More »

Leaked Details On Lips, Microsoft's Answer To SingStar

Michael McWhertor — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:05:00 EDT

Microsoft's uncanny inability to keep a secret has resulted in a major dump of early—and unofficial—information. Rumored details on one of the company's upcoming games, Lips—already known via a previous leak—has made its way onto the internet, courtesy of the intrepid and nosy NeoGAF crowd. Details on the Xbox 360 answer to Sony's SingStar have emerged, a "music and singing game that includes 30 songs, 2 wireless interactive microphones, the ability to use and sing your own music or downloaded songs from an online service." More »

Microsoft Opening Up Lips (And More) Tomorrow?

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:00:51 EDT

Over the weekend, a nosy NeoGAFer poked around one of Microsoft's press asset resources, digging up a product that goes by the name (or codename) "Lips." What is Lips, exactly? We won't know officially until, I'm guessing 8 or 9 AM Pacific time tomorrow morning, but Microsoft news breakin' blog 8bitjoystick says Lips for the Xbox 360 is not a game, but an accessory. More »