Gamelab: SingStar meets Guitar Hero, Just Dance

Announced at E3 was the next evolutionary step in the Singstar series - two new titles called Singstar Dance and Singstar Guitar, which bring in motion control elements and compatibility for guitar peripherals.

At this year's Gamelab Sony London's Ben Foster and Ben Whyntie took to the stage to demonstrate the new games.

Singstar Dance swaps in the microphone for a Move wand, and while the music artist sings on-screen, the player recreates dance moves from a character in the corner. It's also possible to feature the player themselves on-screen instead of the music video, which will apparently be popular with kids.

Meanwhile Singstar Guitar is basically Guitar Hero - but without the cartoon musicians and stages, as the backdrop is the music video itself.

"It's [already] entertaining, but we want to bring more people in," explained Ben. "We hope it's a way for less confident singers to get involved with Singstar more."

"We're aware that there are already a lot of plastic peripherals out there - about 46 million or so - therefore Singstar Guitar is compatible with all existing guitar peripherals," he added.

Singstar's been one of the key success stories for the Sony London Studio since is was first released on the PlayStation 2 - but it was the first singing title to really capture the imagination of gamers.

It'll be interesting to see how effective the power of the Singstar brand will be with concepts that are already in the market - and have already been successful for several years. How hungry will consumers really be for another dance game, or yet another guitar game?