It's a bit of a stretch, so to speak, as we're not sure how accurate the Office of Film and Literature Classification of the Australian Government is when it comes to video games. But as the situation stands, Silicon Knight's Too Human on the Xbox 360 apparently made the M for Mature rating cut for violence, after a revised version of the game was sent for review to Australia and other regions.

Silicon Knight, the developers of the Xbox 360 exclusive Too Human, has announced that it is working on a new third person action/psychological thriller for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the PC. Expected to be released by 2010, this new video game will be funded by a project called the Video Game Prototype Initiative. For more information, head on over to the full article.

It's been a common practice in the video game industry for developers to license game engine technology to avoid having to build the foundations of games, saving time and money in the process. However, some of the industry's best game makers see this as a bad practice, fueling a debate in DICE 2008. Find out who are for it and who are against it, and which side AAA titles like Resistance: Fall of Ma, Ratchet & Clank, BioShock, and Mass Effect fall into when you read the full article ahead.

After Electronic Art's prediction of one standard gaming platform within the next 15 years, Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack believes that not only will the standardized console happen within 15 years, it will be inevitable. "It will happen," said Dyack in an interview with Official Xbox Magazine.

He explains that the standardized console will be brought about not by console wars but because of a phenomenon he coined as "performance oversupply", where all major consoles have already fulfilled their purpose of providing a competent gaming platform so well that the gaming market is suffering a split condition.

Split condition? In Dyack's terms, the gaming market is currently split due to the fact that third-party game developers are having a hard time choosing which platform to develop games for. Conversely, first-party manufacturers are also having a hard time perfecting their software AND their hardware in order to get more third-party developers to make games for them.

The result? Dyack said:

Despite all this, it's still not enough. The economics of the proprietary models seem to point toward spending more money and receiving fewer returns with each generation, with no clear winner.

A consortium of game makers will push through with the idea of a standard console, said Dyack, which would lead to a price drop benefiting consumers as well as an increase in quality. Third-party developers may also benefit the most in the "one console to rule them all" scenario, as it will mean 100% market penetration.

Silicon Knights President Denis Dyack, who also produces upcoming Xbox 360 biggie Too Human, spoke in the build-up to Game Convention 2007 and predicted that a "one console future" is possible as early as the next game generation.

By one console future, he meant that there should come a time when consoles will not be divided into separate platforms, but rather standardized under one spec set and will be universally compatible with all games developed.

To drive home the point, Dyack used historical trends as his basis. He said that all forms of technology have ultimately come together to create one standard that defies specifications and features.

"Hardware differences will not only become less important, but lose their value altogether," predicts Dyack. "Just like a DVD or a camera, everybody would know what those [standardized console] specs are. It's guaranteed your game is going to work."

However, he made it clear that PC gaming will remain distinct in the foreseeable future. He says that unlike consoles, PC specs change rapidly, and that's a factor that won't be addressed by standardization.

So, will we see a Sony Wii 360 or something like that in this lifetime? Maybe. Will it be good or bad for us? What do you think? Post your comments below and let's talk about it.

Game publishers are better off changing their market strategies and adopting something straight out of Hollywood instead of bleeding dollars by the buckets, says Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack.

In an interview, Dyack described contemporary marketing practices in the gaming business as wasteful and flawed. He particularly pointed to the fact that companies put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves to have their developers create demos for an exhibition, then bum-rush titles so that the marketing money spent to hype the game won't be put to waste.

"I don't think we should start doing press on a game until it's finished," says Dyack as he suggested that like films, the approach taken could be to wait for the game to be finished so that all the creative refinements can be made, then allocate a marketing period so that everything comes out smoothly. That way, games come out with a lot of quality, marketing money is made good use of and sales are set at an optimum level.

Instead of showing rough code to the media early on, Dyack suggested that the approach taken by the Too Human developers be made the poster boy of marketing tactics. He says that the strategy adopted is film-like, functional and reliable.