Telford-developed Wii dance game a festive chart topper

A Nintendo Wii game developed by a Shropshire businessman has become one of the best-selling computer games on the Christmas market.

Now That's What I Call Music Dance & Sing, produced by Telford-based Neil Meredith, is riding high in numerous gaming charts including those at Asda and HMV.

The game is the first Wii package that allows wannabe pop stars to mimic their heroes in both song and dance.

Costing around £500,000 to develop, it gives participants the chance to imitate stars including Rihanna, Tinie Tempah, JLS, Jessie J and Dizzee Rascal.

With backing from entertainments industry giant EMI, the game was created by Mr Meredith's company Digital Goals, based at the e-Innovation Centre in Priorslee. Mr Meredith today said he was delighted with its success.

He said: "It's great. We are really pleased with it. It is doing well in the Asda chart and it's doing really well on Amazon.

"The initial release was delayed by a couple of weeks but it's been out for three weekends now and it's doing well."

Vicky Patterson, community colleague at Asda Telford, said: "Sales of the game have gone extremely well. We are having deliveries every day and today we are down to the last three copies."

Players can pick one of 30 tunes that they want to sing along to – and in this case it is the original backing track rather than a karaoke version.

Lyrics are flashed up on the console and, using a microphone to sing in the style of their heroes, players are given performance points for accuracy of pitch, tone and timing.