E3 2010: Ubisoft announces Michael Jackson game – dance battle ensues

Grab your zippered red leather and get to moon walking people, because this is war. Less than 24 hours after Microsoft revealed that its motion-sensitive baby Project Natal would be renamed Kinect, we have not one, but two dancing games competing to make you look like a doofus in your living room.

The first, Dance Central, is coming from Harmonix. However, you had to know that Sony, which owns Michael Jackson’s catalog, was about as likely to give Microsoft access to the King of Pop’s tunes as Lady Gaga showing up to a concert in curlers and sweat pants. Instead, they appear to have cut a deal with publisher Ubisoft to create an entire Kinect game centered around Michael Jackson’s music, mainly singing and dancing to it.

Aaaaannnnddddd… that’s about all we know at this point. The game’s name might actually be Michael Jackson, if the screen at Ubisoft’s press conference is to be trusted. It might be something else. But it will clearly have the song “Beat It” somewhere on its soundtrack, and it’s an iron-clad certainty that you will not look as good while playing it as you think you do when it comes out in winter this year.

June 14, 2010