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Seven45 Studios talks Power Gig details, we go hands-on with its six string guitar peripheral

We’ll just come right out and say it: Guitar Hero and Rock Band should watch their back, ’cause there’s a better-than-decent chance that Power Gig will be all the rage this holiday season. Seven45 Studios is a heretofore unheard of upstart with roots in First Act, and unlike the vast majority of game developers, these guys actually have a direct hand in the production of the software and hardware associated with this package. They’ll be designing the Power Gig video game series (Rise of the SixString is only the first installment) as well as the guitars, drums and microphones in-house, and given the First Act roots, you know you’ll be getting instruments of higher quality than what’s on the market today. Oh, and yes, we didn’t misspeak when we pluralized “guitars” and mentioned those other two devices.

We had a sit down with the team today at GDC, and besides coming away impressed with the alpha build of the game and the prototype axes we saw, we also learned quite a bit more about their plans than what was revealed in this morning’s press release. Just to be exceptionally clear, Seven45 Studios will not only sell their upcoming title as a standalone product, but it will sell a “band bundle” that includes the game, a guitar (plus a strap, picks and an extra set of strings), a drum set and a microphone, the latter two of which are still very early in production and weren’t available for us to test. The beat matching setup that gamers have grown used to in Rock Band and Guitar Hero is still there, but most everything else is new; a “chording” addition will allow users to strum actual power chords that match the chords used in the song, giving newbies the ability to actually learn songs as they play the game. In other words, if users strum the same chords required to succeed in the game but through an amp, they’ll be playing the actual song. Speaking of which, the bundled guitar (along with extra guitars that are still being sorted in terms of size, material and color) doubles as a legitimate six string by simply depressing the dampening pad beneath the neck, and while it won’t match the crisp tone emitted from your Les Paul Custom, the prototype we heard here in San Francisco sounded just fine for a beginner’s instrument. We also learned that existing Rock Band and Guitar Hero guitars will work with the Power Gig titles, and Seven45’s guitars will work with existing music band games — not bad!

More after the break…

Continue reading Seven45 Studios talks Power Gig details, we go hands-on with its six string guitar peripheral

Seven45 Studios talks Power Gig details, we go hands-on with its six string guitar peripheral originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Deezer Raises $9.5 Million More For Free Music Search And Streaming Service
Music search and discovery engine Deezer has raised €6.5 million ($9.6 million) in a second round of financing, bringing the total amount invested in the French upstart to approx. €12.2 million ($18 million). The additional capital was raised from from AGF Private Equity and CM-CIC Capital Privé, thus joining the historical shareholders who make up the DOTCORP Asset Management funds.

Deezer is one of the most popular music services in Europe. Formerly known as BlogMusik, it ran into lots of legal trouble when it launched its free music streaming service a couple of years ago. However, unlike many other ventures of the kind the startup turned itself around, reached essential agreements with copyright associations, and ultimately relaunched as a ‘legitimately’ free music search engine back in August 2007.

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StickK Raises More Funding For Self-Commitment Service, Eyes B2B Play

We haven’t written about StickK, the company that allows you to put a contract on yourself in order to help you commit to improving your lifestyle, since the service was launched back in February 2008. Good thing the company got in touch with us and pointed out they’re doing quite nicely, which gives us a good excuse for an update on them.

StickK was founded by three Yale economists (two professors and a graduate student) and basically allows you to accomplish a goal by setting up a contract against yourself, whether it’s about losing weight, stop biting your nails, writing a novel or whatever else you feel you need to achieve in life. The site takes credit card information up front and charges it on a weekly basis should you fail to meet your self-submitted goal(s). You can designate someone to be your referee — a friend, co-worker or spouse, for example — but in the end, if they fail to do their jobs, StickK.com will take your word for it. The concept is similar to what HealthyWage recently presented on stage at the TechCrunch50 conference.

StickK has been busy raising more funding for the development of the web service. After the founders put in $150,000 of their own cash to get started, the New York-based company went on to raise two rounds totaling an amount north of $2 million from a pool of investors. That brings the total investment in the company to about $2.2 million to date.

User numbers are trending upwards too, fortunately for the upstart (I’m sure it was one of their own goals). When the company launched in February 2008, it grew to 4,000 users by the end of the month and now counts 42,000 registered members. Users so far have entered into 28,000 contracts, and put almost $3 million on the line for their commitments. StickK claims the system is working, too: users are said to be 80% successful when financial stakes, a Referee, and Anti-Charity are utilized.

StickK is now thinking of ways to monetize the service with a B2B offering. The freshly launched stickK.com Corporate Portal offers companies, schools, gyms, health insurance agencies etc. a chance to set up a co-branded version of stickK where customized goals can be designed to achieve wellness and corporate performance-related initiatives. The idea is that corporations could use the platform to drive down healthcare costs while at the same time increasing worker productivity.

As I said, the concept reminds me a lot of HealthyWage, which was one of the startups I was most impressed with at TechCrunch50. I really think it’s a model that works – I like the idea of financial incentives for achievements that have a positive effect on people’s lifestyle and ultimately, society – and I’m very curious to see how much growth these and other companies in this space have in them.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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