Finally, all that crotch-grabbing and spinning around in imitation of the King of Pop that most of us grew up doing will be put to good use. At the recent E3 event, Ubisoft announced the development of a video game based on Michael Jackson’s moves. The game will offer “an interactive experience that enables players to step into the shoes of Michael Jackson himself and re-live his most iconic performances through their own singing and dancing.”
“Michael always pushed every limit when it came to technology to give his fans unforgettable entertainment experiences, whether it involved his videos, his recordings or his concerts. Now, with this interactive product, we have the chance to bring Michael, the artist, into households around the world in a perfect match of Michael’s artistry and the family entertainment which he always highly valued. Kids, their parents, extended family members and friends will now have an opportunity to all come together and experience Michael’s music and dance in an innovative, exciting and fun way.” – John Branca, co-executor for The Estate of Michael Jackson
The game will support all the current motion controller technologies and systems and will be available on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 with Kinect (Project Natal), PlayStation 3 with Move support, Nintendo’s Wii, PSP, and Nintendo DS. It would be one thing to simply have a Michael Jackson video game, but to have a Michael Jackson video game that can actually be controlled by your movements takes things to another level. Given MJ’s popularity, I suspect many non-gamers are going to go out and buy a new Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 just to play this, since people who are into video games already know what they like and want, so they play video games as CSGO, and even buy items online in sites like mycsgoboosting.com/resources/buy-csgo-skins and many others.
Ubisoft has landed a whopper here, the most interesting part of the story being that the Michael Jackson estate reached out to them. According to an article on CNET, the estate reached out to a few different publishers, but ended up choosing Ubisoft, the leader in dance games.
The estate has kept a close eye on how the game was developed, staying involved and being very selective about what they authorized. The full playlist isn’t available yet, but “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” are definitely on it. Look for the game to be available just in time for the holidays.