Codemasters announces Pop Idol game

Codemasters hopes to have hit it big by securing worldwide rights to develop and publish games based on Pop Idol, anticipating that the game of the TV show, due out on PS2 and PC this autumn, "will become the mass-market video game of the year and be Codemasters' biggest video game launch in the company's 17-year history." As this story at GameSpot indicates, Codies has plans for both sides of the Atlantic.

According to Codies' market research, 70 per cent of all 4-15-year-olds watching TV at the time saw the final of Pop Idol where that Will Young fella won over that stuttering Gates chap, and that 70 per cent of those kids play videogames. Given that nine million votes were recorded during the final, you can understand Codies' enthusiasm.

The game itself will feature virtual approximations of the various judges, who will comment on the player's singing skills, complete with Simon Cowell's "colourful commentary". One imagines that the game won't be quite so scathing in order to avoid upsetting the poor little mites whose parents buy it for them. Players will get to train and nurture their own Pop Idol hopeful and take them to the top of the tree, in a Parappa The Rapper-style rhythm-action arrangement according to the press release.

The game will be launched to coincide with the run-up to the final of the second series of Pop Idol. We won't be watching, but some of you will so we'll let you know how the game pans out as soon as we can.