You’ve gotta hand it to the Japanese. They managed to take the strains of howling, tone deaf, drunken business executives and turn them into a multi-billion dollar yen industry. Now you can bring the Karaoke experience to your living room, complete with a cheezy disco light show. (Minus the drunk business executives).
While it’s far from the only Karaoke system out there, what sets Segatoys’ new Hitokara Home Karaoke system apart from the crowd is the mirrored disco ball that spins and shines as you screech along to your favorite bubble gum pop tunes.
It’s also unique in the way it gets its songs. Instead of playing from a CD or DVD, the Hitokara interfaces with a handful of special Karaoke capable mobile phones so you can download songs from the Hitokara online collection which currently has a whopping 43,000 free tracks. But unless they have Rock You like a Hurricane on there, I’m not buying one. Lyrics appear on your phone as the sound streams out of the Hitokara’s stereo speakers, and the LED-illuminated disco ball spins.
The Hitokara will ship this December for ¥7140 (appx. $75 USD). I doubt you’ll see these anywhere outside of Japan for a while.
