SingStar Adds 1.5 Million Players Since Free-To-Play Switch

Sony London studio director Dave Ranyard has told the Develop Conference in Brighton today that SingStar has added some 1.5 million players since making the transition to the free-to-play model last October Gamasutra reports.

This compares to 2 million players who took up the series over its first five years as a paid franchise. 

About six per cent of those who have used the SingStar app go on to purchase premium songs with a "handful" of users to date downloading over 1,000 tracks.

"If free-to-play was relevant [nine years ago], this would have been our business to start with," Ranyard said.

He was keen to stress that moving to free-to-play isn't the only change SingStar has undergone with the number of menus players must wade through before playing a song reduced from six or seven to two or three. In addition, support for a broader range of USB microphones has also been integrated meaning players no longer need to use Sony's official peripherals.

Ranyard says the changes have been made as a means to reduce the barriers to entry.

Also at Develop, Microsoft revealed that its Lift Studio in London is developing four free-to-play new-IPs for connected devices. 

It seems likely that free-to-play will be a prominent game-type on both the PS4 and the Xbox One. Despite charging for multiplayer on PS4 free-to-play games will not be curtained off behind PlayStation Plus' paywall; at present, free-to-play games require an Xbox Live Gold account to access and Microsoft has given no indication that this will change with Xbox One.