由于新型体感技术的出现让运动游戏更具乐趣，音乐游戏玩家已经将其兴趣点从《吉他英雄》类的游戏转移至舞蹈游戏。鉴于这种趋势，最高兴的莫过于Ubisoft，这家法国视频游戏发布商正主宰着舞蹈题材游戏市场。该公司发布的新款舞蹈游戏是视频游戏行业中控制器游戏再次增长的绝佳契机。

4月12日，Ubisoft发布《迈克尔杰克逊：生涯》，希望此举能够抛开其竞争对手。（游戏邦注：这款游戏适用于微软Xbox 360的Kinect体感系统和索尼PlayStation 3的Move体感系统。）去年秋天，该游戏首先在任天堂Wii上亮相，销售量超过3百万套。这个完全翻新的版本适合使用体感系统平台的玩家。Ubisoft北美地区销售和市场高级副总裁Tony Key说道：“舞蹈游戏已成为音乐游戏中最热门的题材，如果以竞争力和游戏的普及程度来衡量，本作可能成为2011年上半年最热门的Kinect游戏。”

Tony Key

自2005年《吉他英雄》发布起，音乐游戏开始逐渐流行起来。这款用户根据屏幕显示的音乐韵律来弹奏模拟吉他的游戏瞬间风靡全球。虽然制作成本只有100万美元，但此作让2008年音乐游戏的收益赶超体育游戏。2008年，音乐游戏在美国的总产值超过20亿美元，而且动视暴雪、EA和MTV正不断地用《吉他英雄》及《Rock Band》给该题材游戏添砖加瓦。

然而玩家却对游戏的续作感到厌烦，2009年起这个题材开始衰弱，销售额跌至10亿美元。据Wedbush Morgan分析师Michael Pachter所述，2010年音乐游戏销售额不足4亿美元。2月份，这个市场表现甚为疲软，以至于动视暴雪宣布关闭音乐游戏部门，解雇数百名员工并取消所有《吉他英雄》系列游戏的后续开发。

《吉他英雄》泡沫带来的有趣现象是，Xbox 360和PS 3游戏在音乐游戏成功的4年里零售额大幅增长。假设现在音乐类游戏完全退出市场，在其风行的这段时间内两款控制器游戏的销量增加了1倍。这表明如果音乐游戏再次出现重磅作品，那么整个视频游戏领域将再次突现增长势头。

2009年11月，Wii游戏《Just Dance》成为Ubisoft首款舞蹈游戏巨作，本作销售量超过400万套。2010年，Ubisoft再次推出《Just Dance 2》，此作卖出了500多万套。去年11月，Ubisoft的《迈克尔杰克逊》系列游戏再次在Wii上获得成功。

迈克尔杰克逊：生涯

Ubisoft使用Kinect上搭载的摄像头捕捉玩家的视频影像，随后将影像投放到玩家在荧幕上看到的舞蹈场景中，这使得Kinect版本游戏更为有趣。因而玩家可以看到自己的舞步，努力与影像背后舞者的移动保持一致。Kinect版本带来的体验比手持控制器有趣得多，因而效果甚于PlayStation或Wii版本游戏。

《迈克尔杰克逊：生涯》同样采用Ubisoft开发Kinect健康视频游戏《Your Shape》所使用的“玩家投影”技术，你所处的环境与迈克尔杰克逊著名视频中完全相同。Kinect版本还可以让玩家像迈克尔一样歌唱，Kinect上的话筒可以捕捉你的声音并推断音调和时机是否与歌词相符。当然并没有那么严格，但如果掌握得当可以获得更高的分数。

目前，舞蹈游戏已成为用户不可或缺的用品，其影响力足与数年前的《吉他英雄》和《Rock Band》媲美。Key表示，《舞蹈中心》表现卓著，使得用户渴求体验更多Kinect舞蹈游戏。（游戏邦注：每次Ubisoft发布新舞蹈游戏都会带动那些老舞蹈游戏的销售量。）

Key说道：“这款新游戏属于Kinect次世代舞蹈游戏，该系列游戏仍然极具发展潜力。目前市场上还未曾出现支持PlayStation Move的优秀舞蹈游戏，喜欢《舞蹈中心》的人群也准备好迎接它的到来。”或许动视暴雪也会紧跟潮流，制作舞蹈游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Victory dance? Ubisoft celebrates as music games shift from guitars to dance

Music game fans have shifted their collective taste from Guitar Hero style games to dance games, thanks to the new motion-sensing technologies that make kinetic games much more fun. No one is happier about that than Ubisoft, the French video game publisher that dominates the dance genre. The company’s new dance games represent one of the video game industry’s best chances for a revival of growth on the consoles.

Today, Ubisoft hopes to take another leap ahead of rivals as it launches Michael Jackson The Experience for Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system for the Xbox 360 and Sony’s Move motion-sensing controller for the PlayStation 3. The game debuted on the Nintendo Wii in the fall, shipping more than 3 million units. But this new version has been completely revamped to suit players on the motion platforms. “Dance games have become the biggest genre in music, and this game is probably the biggest launch of a Kinect game in the first half of 2011,” said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Ubisoft in North America. “That’s measured in the size of our campaign and the scope of the title.”

Music games started a wild ride with the launch of Guitar Hero in 2005. The game, where users played a faux guitar to match the rhythm of music on the screen, was an instant hit. Made on a budget of just $1 million, the title helped music games overtake sports as a game category in 2008. The category grew past $2 billion in the U.S. in 2008, but Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts and MTV milked the genre with one Guitar Hero and Rock Band title after another.

Gamers tired of the sequels, and by 2009, the genre began to collapse, with sales falling to $1 billion. In 2010, music game sales fell below $400 million, according to analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan. In February, the market got so weak that Activision Blizzard announced it would shut its music game division, laying off hundreds of employees and canceling all further Guitar Hero games.

One interesting thing about the Guitar Hero bubble is that retail sales of Xbox 360 and PS 3 games were artificially inflated by the success of music games over the last four years. If you take out the music category entirely, those two consoles saw a doubling of their sales during that time. That means that if there is a major hit in the music category, then growth could suddenly come back to the entire video game sector.

Ubisoft scored its first big dance hit in November, 2009, with Just Dance for the Wii. The game sold more than 4 million units. In 2010, Ubisoft came back with Just Dance 2, which sold more than 5 million units. And Ubisoft scored another big hit with the Michael Jackson game on the Wii last November.

The Kinect version is particularly interesting, since Ubisoft uses the Kinect camera to capture a video image of the player. It then pastes that image into the dance sets that the player sees on the screen. You can thus see yourself dance and you have to try to match the movements of the background dancers behind you. The Kinect experience is a lot more interesting than just holding a controller in your hand, as you do with the PlayStation Move or Wii versions of the game.

The dance game uses the same Player Projection technology that Ubisoft developed for the Your Shape fitness video game for the Kinect. You can dance in the same environments as Michael Jackson’s famous videos that were set in pool halls and other familiar places. The Kinect version also lets you sing like Michael. The Kinect has microphones that listen to your voice and figure out if you’re singing in tune and have the right timing for the lyrics. It’s somewhat forgiving, but you get a good score if you’re a good singer.

So far, the dance genre games are feeding off of each other, much like Guitar Hero and Rock Band did in a few years ago. MTV’s Dance Central did so well that it whet users’ appetite for more Kinect dance games, Key said. And every time Ubisoft launches a new dance game, the older dance games start selling more units, Key said.

“This new game is the next generation of dance games on Kinect,” Key said. “The category isn’t saturated and it has a lot more potential. There hasn’t been a good dance game made yet for the PlayStation Move. People who liked Dance Central are ready for more, and who better to bring it to them than the king of pop?” Who knows? Maybe Activision Blizzard will jump on the bandwagon and do its own dance game. (Source: Games Beat)