Karaoke first developed in Japan at a certain point in the 1970's as a form of amusement that the Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue projected. It consists of a microphone and a PA system used by amateur singers to sing along with recorded music. The old song undergoes a series of modifications, so that the initial voice from it will appear diminished or will not appear at all, having met complete removal. Singer will notice the lyrics displayed on a monitor and have moving symbols in order to direct the singers. A karaoke machine that displays the lyrics on a video screen bears the label of KTV. Karaoke started to catch on in the United States of America in 1990 favored by the owners of lounges and nightclubs for entertaining activities. It allows people to sing in public on a small stage and the time spent by an individual on it can meet limitations by the program of the establishment, some choosing to offer karaoke every day or night, while others choose do it once every week. Its forms vary as well as the materials it played. At first, it only played cassette-tapes, but soon it moved on to CDs and now, DVDs. Nevertheless, its evolution does not stop there, currently a new type of karaoke machine, which should be able to connect via fiber links and provide a much better and faster quality to the music and video, gains more and more attention around the world. The basic karaoke machine comprises an audio output, a microphone and a way to alter the pitch of the recorded music. The old cassette-type ones were changing the pitch by altering the playback speed. The most used one includes a special audio compact disk that has graphic data on it besides the audio one, called a CD+G or a DVD player and audio mixers with microphone input. The CD+G devices are the ones that have connections to the monitor or to a TV set in order to exhibit the lyrics of the songs and they do that by using a sub-code track for encoding the lyrics and images and then rendering them on the screen. As a form of entertainment, a karaoke machine may also confront all its singers in a series of games. The most popular one would be the kamikaze, also called the karaoke roulette. In this particular type of game, one contestant chooses an arbitrary track number. All the rest have to make an effort to play that track as well as they can. This track can have a limit to a certain type of genre or can exclude or include a type of song that is more difficult. Another type of karaoke machine game would be the innovating releases in 2003 for Nintendo or PlayStation 2. Although these games were not that popular at first, this all changed once they have made their appearances on DVDs. This console game finally got the attention it wanted. It became so popular that the producers had to make four more versions for it. In these games, a single player can chant along with the help of on-screen hints, receiving afterwards a score supported by the rhythm, pitch or timing that the player manages. There has also been an online version done for the Microsoft Xbox console. This particular version made it possible for the player to download bonus songs using the Xbox Live service.
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