Sony has announced the debut of its flagship karaoke franchise SingStar is headed to the PlayStation 4, packed with several new features, chief of which is the ability to use Apple and Android smartphones as a microphone via a custom companion app, which can also be uesd to create playlists and queue songs.

The impressive social features of PS4 are at the heart of SingStar™. Players can share their favourite game play moments with the SingStar™ community and out to Twitter and Facebook® instantly from the game. Score challenges allow players to connect online with friends from the PSN community.

We know SingStar™ fans love to dress up and share irreverent social moments and the PS4 camera enables new augmented reality features whereby players can turn their lounge rooms into music sets and adopt their favourite music personas from a range of AR masks.

Chris Bruce, Game Director of SingStar™ adds, "I'm really excited about the new SingStar™ as we've really worked hard to bring the game right up to date for PS4 with a brand new look and feature set. The new microphone app means SingStar™ is now for everyone, and we're looking forward to introducing a new generation of singers to the brand. Personally I can't wait to see some of the new videos the community will be sharing. They never fail to surprise us with their inventiveness, so who knows what they're going to do with the new PS4 camera and augmented reality effects.... it's sure to be entertaining!”

The debut trailer below offers an idea of some of the songs that will be included in SingStar for PS4 when it launches "later this year", and the announcment also confirms that additional tracks will continue to be made available via microtransaction with "the single song price as AUD$2.05 and the song pack price for 5 songs as AUD$9.55".