Sony gets its Groove on for new Eye Toy games

With EyeToy: Play still throbbing away at the top of the charts, Sony has officially confirmed that the next title to use the Logitech-made USB webcam will be EyeToy: Groove, a rhythm-action title due out in Q4 this year.

We're expecting to see the new game at the PlayStation Experience event in London next week as well, as Sony has already confirmed that EyeToy will be there in some capacity. It's not clear whether Groove will be an add-on title for Play, or whether it'll be another full-price offering.

Like all good rhythm-action games, Groove will involve lots of posing, waving and rhythm zones, which players will have to poke at in time to the music. Bonus points are on offer for particularly energetic dance movements, and high scores look set to be rewarded by more features.

In-keeping with all this physical exercise, Groove will include a calorie meter to measure how much you're burning up in each session - a feature first introduced by Konami with its Dance Dance Revolution series of games, which became popular in Japanese gyms (Konami actually ended up buying out People Co., a major Japanese fitness club chain - strange but true!).

Sony's also hoping for another game family and friends can enjoy together, with a multiplayer mode to encourage embarrassing "dance offs", and a challenge mode allowing players to create their own dance patterns for chums to try and clock.

Of course, no rhythm-action game would be complete without familiar tunes, and Groove will have 25 licensed offerings from the likes of Madonna, Misteeq, Sister Sledge, The Jackson 5 and, ugh, The Cheeky Girls. What we'd really like, of course, is the option to whack our own CDs in the drive, or hook them in via some sort of USB line-in, but as long as The Ketchup Song doesn't become a compulsory obstacle, we're sure these 25 will be fine.

Additional reporting by Rob Fahey