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EA and Sony's Video Game/Music Convergence
WebGangsta writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that Electronic Arts and Sony are collaborating on cross-promoting music and videogames. The just released EA title NFL Street 'will feature an original score from Sony artists X-ecutioners and tracks from Sony musicians including Korn, Fuel, Killer Mike and Three 6 Mafia.
Two songs from the soundtrack will be turned into music videos featuring gameplay footage and will be released as singles for radio.
To promote the game, EA said certain Sony Music releases would come with a bonus disc featuring a demo of NFL Street, and the production of the game and involvement of Sony artists will be featured in an MTV special.'
This is just the beginning and an ideal way for Sony to cross-promote their artists with gamers (Amplitude, SSX3, DDR, etc)."
I'm sorry, CowboyNeal, but adding Korn to NFL Street is not "making it funky." It's "making it shitty." Now I have to deal with 5-string bass garbage if I ever want to play NFL Street. Hey, how about we add some Linkin Park to NBA Street? Or I know, how about we put "Sk8er Boi" on the Tony Hawk 5 soundtrack? These songs, besides being the bottom of the pop music barrel, don't even fit in these games.
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
The Playstation was the first console to really take advantage of the CD medium and use it for energizing music tracks. The ball really got rolling with the Playstation release of Wipeout XL. Sony also released a soundtrack CD that featured Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Oribital and several other groups. From there it's just expanded slowly into other games.
EA Big has been using the soundtrack concept for several years to it's advantage. SSX Tricky really stands out in my mind. In fact, EA Big increased their budget for the soundtrack licensing for SSX 3 at the expense of the voice acting budget! (Dang, and I liked having Billy Zane as the voice of Psymon.)
Well, mainstream press. I for one, welcome you to the present day. I trust you'll find our new soundtrack overlords accomodating.
They did create new music.
"will feature an original score from Sony artists X-ecutioners"
I've never heard of them, but it is an original score. The music changes depending on what's happening in the game. And I think the rap/hip-hop sound fits with football. I'm not sure how the regular songs fit in with the score though.
In extreme sports games (like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater), I think a soundtrack that's just singles from bands is the best idea. You can play those games forever, you're going to get sick of a soundtrack that all has the same musical theme more quickly than you will a list of 30 or so individual songs by individual bands. And unlike most other genres, you're never going to associate certain music with certain times you played the game. It's all pretty similar, it'll just blur together in your head.
But for most other genres I definitely agree an original score is always a better idea (if it's done right).
You have some good ideas here, and i more or less agree with you on all your points.
However, I really don't see the "original music" thing happeneing all that much. Instead I think we are headed for a similar situation to that of the cinema. Yes, some bands will attach a unique/new piece of music to an upcoming game but for the most part I think that the soundtrack practice is going to stay focused as a "product placement" type approach.
You hear Korn playing on Street, and maybe some people go "wow Korn is pretty cool I should buy/ download their album" Korn in essence becomes like "Doritos" or "mountain dew" only louder, and with fewer artifical perservatives.
Enya doing a game soundtrack? How about Halo 2?
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Everyone seems to be against having singles show up in games, the main reason being the music is no good. I've got news for you: NFL Street/Madden/SSX/etc. are "mainstream" games. That means a lot of casual gamers will play these games and casual gamers are more likely to dig the music. Personally, I don't see what the big deal is. It's better than generic menu music, and if it bothers you so much then turn it off.
EA has done a decent job so far of using licensed music in a good way. The in-game music for NFL/NBA Street goes along with the gameplay quite well. If you don't like hip-hop/turntablism then it's not going to be appealing.
Microsoft has done the best job of using licensed music so far in Project Gotham Racing 2. You race through multiple cities all over the world, and the radio stations are real stations in those cities with the real DJs. I was impressed that WPGC 95.5 in Washington DC even had a couple go-go (club/party reggae-ish music that's huge in DC) tracks in its playlist. Plus the actual music was decent and turned me on to some new bands.
Would I have been happy if Viewtiful Joe had music from a bunch of nu-metal bands? Hell no! But if sports/racing/dance games want to use licensed music, it's a whole lot better than some generic techno the sound guy threw together.
(That statement excludes Daytona USA... DAY-TON-AHHHHHH! Let's go away!)
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
I'm not so sure that is the case. I've played a lot of NHL 2003 and I have heard some songs that I hadn't heard anywhere else that are pretty good. It's piqued my interest in some of the artists and though I haven't bought a CD from any of these artists I can't say I won't do so in the future. I also have SSX 3 and found there are some pretty good tunes in there as well.