DJ Hero developers form part of new mobile studio

Ex Freestyle Games staff have formed a new team called Music In Colour, which will publish its first new mobile project as part of studio 8linQ.

8linQ is made up of Music In Colour, Reactify and the Metropolis Group. The studio creates mobile based music games, and will release its first title, Say What?! on July 20.

"The music business needs to capture a new audience," joint managing director Chris Lee told the Guardian.

"Rather than make a game then license the music, this is much more of a partnership. We think there is a great opportunity to leverage the mobile platform to build something that reaches a wider audience, and monetises music."

iPhone game Say What?! has a licensing deal with Sony Music Entertainment, and features tracks from the Zutons and Calvin Harris. Players have to select the right lyrics and tap at the correct time.

"It's almost a Generation Game mechanic: a simple layer that lives over the music. We're not trying to be cleverer than that," added Lee.

"This is about something that appeals in its simplicity, and we're trying not to niche it. It should appeal as much to 8-13 year-old girls as it does to 30-40 year-old males."

Lee also discussed the change of pace in the move from console development to iOS.

"I love the immediacy of being able to create content," he said.

"Development cycles are so much shorter, and you get that immediacy of feedback too, where you can watch how your consumer is playing, react and develop new features. We have designed this game so that if we get a song at 9am, we can have it for sale by 9am the next day."

Chris Lee was previously commercial director at Freestyle. It was back in February that Activision announced it was canning Freestyle Games' DJ Hero series.