Hikaru Utada and PlayStation team up for a virtual reality wig snatch

Hikaru Utada x PlayStation VR | Random J Pop

Hikaru Utada's first tour in 8 years, the Laughter in the dark tour, is sponsored by PlayStation. Because bitch, of course it would be. Kingdom Hearts yo!

But something cool that PlayStation and Hikaru Utada's team have done, is create PSVR experiences of her performing two of her Kingdom Hearts themes; "Hikari" and "Chikai". One for "Passion" woulda been nice, but I guess it's not part of her tour setlist.


Whilst Hikaru Utada has long been synonymous with Kingdom Hearts, this is the first time that we've seen a marriage of Hikaru Utada's world with that of gaming, outside of her song just featuring in some cinematic sequences. There's also her killing it at Tetris, but that's literally just her playing a video game and nothing more.

It makes me beg the question why there isn't more of a synergy between music and video games in instances such as this.

Pop stars singing themes to video games or having their songs licensed to feature in video games is nothing new. But this is often all it ends up being. A song in a game. Artists very seldom do anything synergistic.

Musicians and artists appearing in gaming spaces can be awkward, and has been awkward when it's been done in the past. I mean...


We were never going to get Ariana Grande performing "Touch it" at the video game awards or Katy Perry rock up at E3. The way in which artists and video games meld should feel natural and make sense to both parties. There are lots of options, possibilities and ways to make it work, but nobody seems to care much about making an effort to do so.

So I find this union of Hikaru Utada and PlayStation cool. It's a great look at the kind of cross media content that we could get if musicians and games developers gave more of a damn. Just think about where this could go for Hikaru specifically. When Hikaru Utada's Laughter in the dark tour goes on home release, there could be an exclusive PSVR version of it. We could have versions of her "Hikari" and "Passion" videos, recreated in the Kingdom Hearts game engine, which could also be watched in-game in an internet cafe or a cinema in Traverse town.

However, as great as this Hikaru Utada and PlayStation deal is, it's only available in Japan at present. Which is a WHOLE other post, as far as making Japanese artists' content available globally. Something which continues to be a sticking point for Hikaru Utada herself and her international fans. But some lovely person has uploaded the PSVR version of "Hikari" to YouTube.

Get into the new arrangements. My wig is caught in a tidal wave.



So here's to hoping that artists who find themselves in the world of gaming start to think outside of the box and think about the synergistic content and partnerships that they could create.

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