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History
On August 8, 2000, TOMY announced its newest product, the kiss-Site. The device was a home karaoke system aimed at elementary and junior high school students, as well as housewives who could not easily visit a karaoke booth, allowing them to enjoy dance karaoke at home.
In the 1990s, karaoke was an extremely popular activity in Japan, and many companies were looking to enter the home market. However, home karaoke systems were expensive and complex. Users needed a screen for the lyrics, a good-quality audio system, specially encoded songs, and so on. Music distribution was probably the biggest problem. In an age when the Internet was not as fast or widespread as it is today, consumers had to rely on specialized (and expensive) compilations or use a machine that could connect to an online catalogue. In 1994, Sega released the Sega Music Network for use with its commercial karaoke system, the Prologue-21. In 1995, Taito offered a similar service for its home karaoke system, the X-55. All of these systems required an online connection and a subscription, leaving the door wide open for TOMY to provide a true “professional” karaoke system at a low price.
According to a survey conducted by TOMY, many elementary and junior high school students had never been to a karaoke booth because school rules prohibited it, yet half of them said they would like a home karaoke machine.
To ensure the kiss-Site would feel professional, TOMY reached out to Toei Video for the production of the Dance Karaoke series software. They used Furikara technology, a karaoke system with choreography functions that the company provided for the commercial online karaoke service “Super B-Max.” In Furikara, the dancers’ movements were digitized through motion capture, and a computer-generated character made of 3D polygons reproduced the choreography in time with the music. Because it was rendered in real time, the user could also change the angle of the character. Since the kiss-Site had no 3D rendering capabilities, the choreography data was converted into MPEG-compliant video data before being recorded onto a CD-ROM. This eliminated the ability to switch angles but provided live-action footage of the same quality as professional-grade equipment.
The kiss-Site was essentially a Video CD player. Because its primary target audience was students, TOMY had planned to develop edutainment and hobby content for the platform. TOMY was so confident in the product’s success that it announced, even before launch, that a new model supporting online distribution would be released by the end of 2001.
TOMY had ambitious plans for the kiss-Site, hoping to sell 200,000 units of the hardware and 600,000 software titles in the first year, starting with the Christmas sales season. To achieve this, TOMY launched various events, including a national audition contest on TV Tokyo’s Oha Suta show. The contest, called the Kiss Girl Audition, attracted 1,000 participants. The finalists appeared in a TV advertisement promoting the upcoming console. In the end, Hasegawa Ai took first place, followed by Aragaki Risa in second and RENA in third.
Release
The console launched with 20 titles in the “Dance Karaoke Series,” with two to three new titles planned each month. In addition to SPEED, Morning Musume, and Namie Amuro, the lineup also included artists aimed at housewives, such as Pink Lady. Each software title contained two songs and cost ¥680. While two songs might seem like a rip-off, it was in fact a marketing strategy to keep the price low so that even elementary and junior high school students could easily purchase the software.
However, a few days before the launch of the kiss-Site, Takara released its own karaoke system for kids, the e-Kara. The e-Kara became an instant success, leaving TOMY and the kiss-Site in the dust.
TOMY continued to promote the kiss-Site. At the 2001 Tokyo Game Show, the company scheduled a talk show and live performance by voice actress Nana Mizuki.
Demise
While the kiss-Site was not a complete failure, it never reached its full potential, as the e-Kara captured most of the market.