SingStar: The Business

I think from the consumer's view it's a perception of the value of the experience is. That's all it equates to. If I told you to spend GBP 100 on something that you had no idea about, and therefore didn't know you wanted... but as soon as you used it you thought there was value in spending GBP 100 on it, then it's a no-brainer.

But before that, convincing somebody that they'd want it is kinda hard. So you've sort of paved the way there, and as soon as people have your confidence... It was unfair criticism that PlayStation had in the early stages of the PlayStation 3 - which was a Blu-ray player, wireless connection, all of the features that you now know... I couldn't go down and get an iPod Touch for that price. Really, they were comparable in terms of price, and it's people's perception that gives value or non-value.

You're absolutely right - it's the mental process. If you equate it to how many times you go to the cinema - and when things are tight with budgets maybe you don't want to spend as much... so you work out that in the next six months you're going to spend this much taking the family to the cinema, but for half that you can get Rock Band with the drum kit and we can spend the next six months playing that...

Also, if you've got iterative content that comes out regularly - you might not go to the cinema to see the same film six times in a row, but you might go and see six films by the same director, if you can equate it to that. But there is an element to do with that.

It should be a progressive iteration, rather than some revolutionary progression, because people just get ostracised and then it's not worth it. I'm not sure how long the bubble will last with all these music-type peripheral games, but there seems to be a lot of me-too-type product out there. Before long what tends to happen is that it dilutes, the audience gets confused and isn't sure which one to go with, and they end up stopping buying.

I think we're very fortunate to have been there from the start, and to have become - certainly in Europe - and household name. It's a bit like Apple with the mp3 player.

In Norway, if people are going out to karaoke, they say "Let's go out and SingStar" - it's like the Hoover.

I think one of the things that helps us is that we've concentrated on singing, and singing - as a group like that - is a tradition. People have been doing it for hundreds of years, and yet in some ways it seems to have fallen our of favour in the last 20-30 years when Hi-Fi came into the home. It's actually more of a return to traditional behaviour, sitting around a piano and banging out some tunes... people have been doing it for years. I think we're developing that experience for the 21st century, and that gives me a lot of faith.

I think the two things have collided - people don't necessarily have the time to learn to play piano or guitar, but they want these dip-in experiences, and feel like they're a pop star.