| Karaoke Joysound | |
|---|---|
 Karaoke Joysound Wii in the Japanese retail package. | |
| Developer(s) | Hudson Soft, Xing |
| Publisher(s) | Wii (retail)
|
| Platform(s) | Wii, WiiWare, Wii U, Nintendo Switch |
| Release | Wii Original version:
|
| Genre(s) | Music |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Karaoke Joysound (カラオケJOYSOUND) is a karaoke service and online song library from Japanese karaoke service provider Xing. The Joysound service, which started on various karaoke computers, was adapted into a video game by Hudson Soft for Wii, licensing the Joysound online song library alongside Xing, who also helped co-develop the game with Hudson. The game was originally released in a retail package with an included USB microphone on December 18, 2008 in Japan, and was later released there as a downloadable WiiWare game on July 28, 2009.
In January 2012, Konami (which acquired Hudson Soft and all its original IPs in 2011) announced they would release the title for the first time in North America under the simplified title Karaoke Joysound, which connected to a much different music library of well-known English songs. It was originally expected for a March 2012 release, but was delayed until October 30, 2012, and was made available as both a standard disc and a microphone bundle. On July 17, 2014, the software was re-released as a downloadable WiiWare title, without any prior announcements, for the North American Wii Shop Channel, courtesy of publishers Brother International Corp. It was originally announced for a July 3 release, but it was delayed for unknown reasons.[1]
The software is spiritually succeeded by the Joysound-licensed Wii Karaoke U app for the Wii U in 2012, and as of July 2014[update] it is only available in Japan and Europe. On May 18, 2015, Konami announced the termination of the Wii Joysound service. Last date to purchase songs was July 21, 2015 and the service was shut down on October 29, 2015.[2] A successor for the Nintendo Switch named Karaoke Joysound Switch was developed by Xing (who worked on the original games) and published by Nintendo. It was released only in Japan in 2017.