We got a chance to sit down with Keiichi Yano – chief creative officer of Lips developer iNiS – for a walkthrough of their upcoming Xbox 360 karaoke game. We'll get around to writing up some of our impressions later, but first we wanted to share some answers to our biggest questions about the game.

The microphone

• The wireless microphone will bind with the Xbox 360, no dongle required.
• It's unclear if it will work with other music games. When asked about Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour, Keiichi Yano told us, "That's a great idea. We would love to do that." Alas, it's up to those third-party devs to implement support for this peripheral.
• A second player can shake the microphone to instantly "jump in" to the song, no menus needed.
• They use 2 AA batteries, just like the Xbox 360 controller. Yanno said that, despite the motion-sensitivity and the lights, the battery life is pretty impressive already, on prototype hardware.
• Lips will be bundled with a black and a white controller

Your music

• Though they were only showing off the streaming functionality through a Zune, they assured us it would work just as simply through an iPod. When asked why they couldn't use one now, Yano responded, "Trust me. It works." We then crossed our arms and fell backwards into his waiting arms ...
• DRM'd songs can't be used, regardless of the DRM scheme used. So no Zune or iTunes songs.
• Lips will perform "vocal reduction" on your own songs, though they weren't showing the functionality off.
• You can be scored on your own songs.
• Audio from a Zune or iPod is streamed only, not downloaded, so you'll need to keep it nearby
  
• After telling us that they "actually don't know" if Lips will be able to read directly from your streaming media library (think iTunes) the way the Xbox 360 can, Yano said they'd like to implement the feature, which he followed up by saying "hint hint, wink wink, say no more." We asked him to repeat that in a British accent and he was all too happy to oblige.
• When asked if you would see your Avatar singing on the screen in the absence of a music video, they said they weren't talking about Avatars now.
• No word on how they'll implement lyrics or a beat chart for the songs, though Yanno promised it would be "very, very compelling."

Its music

• There are only three confirmed songs: "Mercy" by Duffy; "Young Folk" by Peter, Bjorn & John; and "Bust a Move" by Young MC
  
• All songs will be master tracks and will include the original music videos
• Rap songs work a little differently, it's not just about rhythm.

Microsoft's Lips has been "officially" unveiled at E3 -- a bit early courtesy of Gamerscore Blog. The karaoke game, developed by Elite Beat Agents dev iNiS, will feature motion-sensitive wireless microphones. (What does that mean?) The "franchise" is expected to hit Xbox 360 this holiday season.

Update: "Lips breaks new ground by being the first game to let you sing from your own music collection," says Keiichi Yano. Wow.

Gamerscore Blog has leaked Microsoft's announcements in their video RSS feed -- below is a list of games we'll see at the press conference today:

• Fable 2
• Gears of War 2
• Guitar Hero World Tour
• Rockband 2
• Lips
• Uno Rush
• Galaga Legions
• Portal: Still Alive

So looks like a sequel/sidequel to Portal is in the works for Xbox 360, as is another Uno game, and a Galaga sequel. More news to come, including what we can get out of the video that accompanies the leaked post.

Thanks, William D.!

No sooner does Variety all-but-confirm that Microsoft's somewhat mysterious Lips karaoke project will be shown at E3 then Gamekyo gets their hands on some apparent promotional shots of the game's wireless microphones (above) and box art. No screenshots of the gameplay yet, but the photo dump does include two pictures of people standing around with microphones near their mouths (you know, in case you were wondering what karaoke looked like).

Actually, these singing shots do show one interesting feature: the "lights on the shaft of the microphone that pulse to the rhythm of your voice," that were hinted at in last month's leaked Intellivoice Intellisponse survey. According to the pictures, this feature takes the form of two rings of light near the base and tip of the microphone, bathing the singers' hands in an ethereal blue or red glow. We'll let you know if the feature comes off as trippy or tacky when we inevitably get some hands-on time with the game next week.

[Update: Corrected the name of the Intellisponse survey. Not to be confused with Intellivoice. Whoops!]

We've got more rumors about next week's E3 announcements, but this one seems a bit more plausible. Variety reports that "somebody involved in promoting it" has revealed to the outlet that Microsoft will be showing off a brand new music/singing game. Our first instinct is to scream "Lips!" (naturally, using our lips in the process), the leaked karaoke game that Elite Beat Agents developer iNiS may or may not be working on.

We've got our ears to ground and our noses to the grindstone between now and Microsoft's Monday press conference.

In anticipation of next week's E3 Media and Business Summit, we've prepared bingo cards for each of the big press conferences, filled with some likely (and some not-so-likely) predictions for what each of the big three console makers intends to announce at arguably the biggest trade shows of the year.

Today's card is for Microsoft (special thanks to X3F). We're going out on a limb and giving Avatars away as the free space. Click on each of the slides above for more information about our predictions. Microsoft's E3 press conference is scheduled for next Monday at 10:30 am PT (that's 1:30 pm Joystiq Time / ET). As always, we'll be liveblogging the event, so you can play along in real-time with us.

Stay tuned for more press conference bingo cards in the days leading up to the conference. (Also: check out our bingo card for Sony's press conference.)

Download a copy (PNG file) and play along!

Update: Only hours after we post this ... N2, you hit my battleship!

While the thread on this rumor is pretty thin, we wanted to share it with you anyways, being clear about its origins. After yesterday's rumor-splosion gave us some more potentially accurate info on Lips – the Xbox 360's answer to PS3's SingStar – we received an unverified tip which appeared to originate from within Microsoft, which told us that the Microsoft Game Studios-published title was being developed by iNiS, the Japanese dev best known for its Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan Nintendo DS games.

So, to recap: Microsoft is working on a karaoke game codenamed "Lips" – that's a rumor. The developer working on the game is iNiS – also a rumor. That iNiS has a long history of making music and rhythm games and that it's co-founder Keiichi Yano confirmed that the developer was in fact working on an unnamed Xbox 360 game – those are both facts. We'll (hopefully) put the rest of the puzzle together four weeks from today when Microsoft holds their E3 press conference. If you've got any more information, we're all ears about Lips.

Sounds like rumors pointing to the Microsoft's leaked "Lips" project were only half-right: according to the very same survey that gave us such hits as Microsoft's Xbox 360 "avatar" service, Lips is a "music and singing game" featuring not only two wireless microphones (that's the hardware part) but also thirty tracks, an online store, and "the ability to use and sing your own music." If this sounds like Xbox's answer to Singstar then, well ... your hearing is pretty good.

In order to take things to the next level, the Xbox crew has added a couple distinguishing features. First: the Lips microphones will be "interactive" with "lights on the shaft of the microphone that pulse to the rhythm of your voice, and motion sensors that allow you to dance, move or swing to score points." Second: you can use songs from a CD (how do you get them into the game?) or from an iPod – apparently the game will magically "reduce the vocals so you can sing along and be heard." Don't know the lyrics by heart? You can add those in as well.

As Microsoft continues to focus on the mainstream consumer, a karaoke game is a natural fit. Expect to hear more about Lips (like maybe a real title!) at E3 next month.

We've already blown the whistle on several new projects that may be announced at Microsoft's Gamer's Day tomorrow, with "Ninja Blade" and "Lips" being the most nebulous of the bunch. We still don't know what the former is, but 8Bit Joystick has shared a couple of thoughts on the latter matter. The site states that "Lips" is, in fact, the codename for a new Xbox peripheral, and speculates that it could be a voice input device (karaoke microphone?) or some method of in-game voice recognition.

For now, we'll go with, "Hmm, intriguing." Let's hope Microsoft drops the balm tomorrow and fills us in on these ... e-lips ...

[Thanks, Jake]

This is the last Microsoft leak story we have to tell you about (at least for now), but it was too interesting to pass up. When one NeoGAF user discovered the treasure trove of data that confirmed both Scene It? 2 and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise on a Microsoft press site, they also found listings for "Lips" and "Ninja Blade," presumably titles to be revealed at tomorrow's Microsoft Gamer's Day '08.

So what could they be? That's the beautiful part: We have absolutely no idea. And as you know, when the internet isn't sure about something, the internet makes shit up. It's your Gore-given right, make sure you exercise it in the comments below with some rampant speculation.