Carman Dix, Art director of Too Human:
Underneath, Denis is still that boy that genuinely loves video games with a passion.

Henry Sterchi, Director of design of Too Human:
Denis is sincerely passionate about the quality of everything Silicon Knights does, and with that passion comes some of his outspokenness and desire to interact with the community.

Steve Henifin, Audio director of Too Human:
One of the things I like about Denis is that he is a tenacious person and he takes risks. I respect him for that, because I’m the same way.

That's nice and all... What do you really think?

‘Too Human’ Developers Share Impressions Of Denis Dyack [Multiplayer] [Pic]

X3F Presents: Silicon Knights studio tour [X3F]

[2chan]

Microsoft Game Studios and Silicon Knights are committed to finishing the first instalment, but Too Human is an overarching epic with a rich and vast game universe that cannot be told in one instalment.

This game will begin the saga of the god Baldur in the narrative tradition of classic trilogies, such as Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings. We will talk about the full trilogy and we are very excited about its potential.

Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Too Human? All in the same Microsoft breath.

Too Human trilogy ‘very exciting’, says Microsoft [MCVUK]

We've been lucky enough to make Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, Too Human and if you look at all of those they're all really different. The next game that we're going to announce, not including the sequels to the trilogy, it's nothing like anything else we've ever made before...We want to continue to do that to keep fresh. That's really what's important, and making sure that we continue to make new IPs but also continue to innovate in the genres that we try to... create content in, I suppose is the best way to describe it.

He still thinks a second and third Too Human are going to be made? Bless him. As for this mystery project, it'll be with Sega, and if he's teasing us like this a more formal announcement can't be too far off.

Silicon Knights' next game "nothing like" Too Human [CVG]

Well the trial is proceeding, we feel really good about our claims, and we’re hopeful that justice will be done. We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry.

The Unreal Engine is still the industry's most popular third party engine.

SK v Epic: 'Justice will be done' says Dyack [Develop]

Hit the jump for the full press release with pre-order info:

Now is the Time to Become a god Amongst Men; Xbox 360 Exclusive Too Human has Gone Gold

Xbox LIVE Marketplace demo downloads surpass 900,000

Microsoft Game Studios and Silicon Knights announced today that the blockbuster action RPG “Too Human” has gone gold and will be shipping to retailers throughout North America on August 19. In anticipation of the title’s release, gamers can jump into the first level of “Too Human” with a demo now available on Xbox LIVE. The Too Human demo has already been downloaded more than any other action demo on Xbox LIVE Marketplace in its first week of availability and has been one of the top played titles on Xbox LIVE overall. In addition, gamers that pre-order will get access to five exclusive armor sets, one for each class in the game.

A modern take on classical Norse mythology, the Xbox 360 exclusive “Too Human” chronicles the epic story of cybernetic god, Baldur, and his quest to save humanity at the potential price of sacrificing his own humanity. By combining elements of both action and RPG genres – along with the ability to fully customize Baldur’s weaponry, armor, and combat techniques – Too Human creates a truly unique gameplay experience. Players can also invite a friend to join the explosive combat via advanced, online two-player co-op gameplay on Xbox LIVE *.

“Too Human” will have an estimated retail price of $59.99 and is rated “T” for Teen. For more information, visit www.xbox.com/toohuman.

*Online co-op play requires Xbox LIVE Gold Membership.

Too Human Gold [Gamerscore Blog]

You're not still reading, obviously, but keep an eye peeled for our similar line of interviews coming soon. They'll feature myself and Mike Fahey in Craftmatic adjustable beds interviewing industry luminaries in our PJs. As soon as someone agrees, we'll start filming. Any day now...

Denis Dyack Explains Too Human To Our Penthouse Pets, Part 1 [Das Gamer]

Dyack recognizes this dichotomy, and says that cut scenes in themselves are not a problem, but rather his fellow designers have implemented them poorly:

Over the last five to ten years, so many games have been released where cut scenes are absolutely meaningless. They don’t contribute to the content and don’t contribute to the characters. They’re almost like some kind of reward for completing the level, and that makes absolutely no sense.

As game designers we have to go beyond that. Cut scenes have to contribute to the game. That’s a really good rule for people to follow. And it shows you that the classics, well, we still have a lot to learn from the classics.

So what will he do about cut scenes in his Too Human?

Too Human will have cut scenes, but I think that we've managed to blur the line between what people would consider a cut scene and what people consider in-game. See, part of the reason we as designers want to use cut scenes is because it allows us to be cinematographers, and that's fine. But in-game, Too Human will use a dynamic, intelligent camera system that presents the in-game in a more cinematic light, at the same time being conducive to good gameplay.

Seems to me that's the logical goal, given both the advantages and disadvantages of cut scenes. And I'd guess that most of the games we've got these days that use cut scenes badly were actually an attempt to do them well. Easy to say, hard to do?

Denis Dyack Writes for Edge [Edge Online]

The demo was unveiled on Xbox Live last week — were you too caught up in E3 craziness, or did you catch it? We had a lengthy discussion on it here at Kotaku last week, in case you missed it. What do you think, Europe? Looking forward?

And on the off chance you have no idea what we're even talking about, Microsoft has helpfully offered full details in the announcement after the jump.

The Epic World of Too Human is Available Across Europe this August, exclusively on Xbox 360

Microsoft today announced the European release date of “Too Human”, the epic third person action game from renowned Canadian developer Silicon Knights. Exclusive to Xbox 360™,“Too Human” will be available across Europe from 29th August 2008.

In this modern take on classical Norse mythology, players are thrust into the midst of an apocalyptic battle that threatens the very existence of mankind. Playing as the divine cybernetic son of Odin, Baldur, you are one of the Aesir, humanity’s protectors charged with defending mankind from the onslaught of ancient machine armies.

As“Too Human” chronicles this epic story, the game breaks the genre barrier by combining elements of both the action and RPG genres. Players are treated to a non-stop barrage of action, powered by the seamless integration of melee and firearms combat, with the deep role-playing game elements fuelled by breathtaking visuals. Battles unfold on awesome scale as players engage with vast numbers of enemies, and gamers can also take this to the next level playing cooperatively on Xbox LIVE.

“Too Human” is produced by Canadian-based Silicon Knights, bringing a wealth of knowledge, story-based design and gameplay expertise to the next generation of video gaming, and committed to elevating games to the prime form of entertainment.

For more information, please visit the official Too Human website at www.xbox.com/toohuman.

The polarizing Xbox 360 hack and shoot adventure will join the festival of downloadable delights at some point next week, as Microsoft attempts to distract you from coverage of its competitors by offering up free trailers, demos, news from the E3 show floor and other shiny objects. Look forward to it, won't you?

Pre-E3 2008: Too Human Demo Finally Coming [IGN]

I was basically calling out people who had no way of assessing the game... All I wanted to point out to people is that this is so ridiculous... I went through all of this for two reasons.... If you're going to look at the NeoGAF forum as a non-profit organization, if it does not reform itself, it's eventually going to crumble. There's going to be a point where they step over the line where someone's going to shut them down. That would be a loss for everyone.... The question I have to ask the moderators of GAF: Are you going to follow your own rules? With people making GIFs of myself that are, I would say, attacking me.... Why haven't 180 people been banned now? If I wanted to move in and shut that place down, do I have grounds under their own forum policy?

There's more. Oh, yes. More. Hit the jump for more excitement!

NeoGAF and other forums like this that don't have good management are not only hurting society and hurting the videogame industry, they're in decline, and they need to reform quickly before people stop listening to them... If the moderators and people who run the site think they aren't doing any damage, they are sorely mistaken, and it's only a matter of time before something bad happens.

This all has basis in philosophy, science fiction, and social theories that Dyack has been reading and pondering. No, really. Those interested in learning more about NeoGAF, its influence and who owns it, 1Up has a insightful feature.

Dyack Talking Gaf [1Up]

We met up in an Aesir lobby this morning, my level 28 veteran named Shin rubbing elbows with his freshly created level 1 Berserker known as TotiloTheBold. After a few minutes of finagling — his main character, a Berzerker, couldn't join my game because of some DLC downloading snafu — we got into a game of my creation.

Setting up a Too Human co-op match was rather straightforward, choosing a chapter, a looting type and the number of private slots. I threw Stephen in the deep end, perhaps a bit unfairly, as we tackled the game's third chapter "The World Serpent." Looting was set to "Round Robin" so we each got our fair share, but greedy loot hoarders can set their games to "Free For All." The third Loot Distribution type, Random, should be self-explanatory.

We set off...

Our first task, before setting off to battle, was attempting to trade some of our items. Being the generous guy I am, I pored through my inventory in a vain attempt to find something for TotiloTheBold. Not much luck, as most of my stuff had level requirements in the 20s, but we found a couple of ludicrously named items that worked.

Trading was initially a bit awkward as the game won't display the HUD icon that permits a trade unless two Baldurs are in just the right proximity. You can't just drop items for others to pick up in Too Human, you have to agree to trade and use the Trade menu interface. I assume that's due to the game's magnetic loot that floats toward Baldur after it drops and to prevent the stealing or duplication of items.

To get Totilo up to a point where he could use some of this stuff, we had to slay some of Too Human's beasts.

Turns out the third chapter isn't the best place to start. Devoid of any story, narration or cut scenes, the beginning of that particular level can be a bit confusing. There's an anomalous Cyberspace transition here, something that was unsettling to both of us. It's designed that way single-player, but in co-op and for the uninitiated, it doesn't quite work. We soldiered on, whacking away at dozens of spawning robo-Goblins, robo-Trolls and robo-Elves, chatting about the game's quirks and our complaints.

Since we were both offensively geared classes, there wasn't much talk of strategy. Just lots of juggling, hacking and shooting. It wasn't long before TotiloTheBold was leveling up. That meant plenty of pausing, then waiting for my partner to spec out his skill tree, combing through his newly acquired armor and weapon drops while the menu screen was up. After some brief character management we'd head into the next room, dispatch a few more Goblins, rinse and repeat. All the way to level 8 for Totilo, up to 30 for me.

Two-player co-op can bog down during these moments, as one waits for the other to futz with the menu screen. The implementation of dealing with all these things isn't the speediest or most elegant, making me think it might not have been a bad idea to whittle down four player co-op to two. Add to that common frame rate chug and the lack of a radar, map or compass that would indicate where your teammate is, and we might sign a petition against four-player co-op in the inevitable sequel.

That absence of a mini-map or radar on your HUD can lead to some confusion about the location of your co-op buddy. It doesn't help that the environments are both somehow lackluster and overly busy. And that the camera ranges from awful to sometimes serviceable. After a handful of deaths and the following trip to Valhalla (read: the previous room), we had a hard time reconnecting. We had to talk it out.

Which wasn't the worst thing in the world, as Totilo pointed out in his impressions. It's "better than a phone call" he wrote, offering some mindless grinding fun and the chance to chat. Probably not a good pull quote for the box art, but it's a positive.

I think that Totilo enjoyed the reaping of loot more so than I did. I had already gone through dozens of pieces of armor, many more weapons and runes, salvaging all manner of sword, staff and shoulderpad. But the core concept of loot gathering and level grinding may just be enough for Xbox 360 gamers looking for such a thrill.

My particular issue with all that grinding, all that collecting is that little of it feels like it has any real impact on Baldur's performance. That may be due to this being the first in a planned trilogy and that the real good stuff is coming down the line. But Baldur doesn't start his Too Human adventure with anything simple or even identifiable. Equipment names are ridiculously flowery, resulting in everything sounding like a showpiece item. Are Proficient Shockplate Blast Shields of Reinforcement more covetable than Gallant Gunslinger's Blastshield of Urd? There might be just too much in the way of variety here, because I'm not sure if my Imperial Deathguard of Hypnosis with a +6 Annulment bonus is any good or not.

Baldur's skills don't pack much of a punch either, as my desire to allocate skill points to increasing my reload speed by 2.5% doesn't sound as thrilling as it might in print. Spider cool-down rates and higher juggle heights, similarly, just don't quite do it for me. This is where some of the game's urging to clear just one more room might sound a bit more muted.

That said, all of this stuff may just be right up your alley, if you're done with the game's somewhat brief single-player experience and are looking for more. If there's one thing Too Human definitely has, it's a well of depth. The well may be a bit too murky, perhaps a bit too deep, but it's there if you feel like diving in.

"Interview with Silicon Knights about Too Human" [Eurogamer, via VG247]

But as I hacked my way through the Xbox 360 game's first six hours of the single player campaign — putting me at about half-way through, according to the game's own Stats ticker — I began to mostly puzzled by what it was the team was doing with its time. Too Human seems surprisingly unpolished for a game that's been in some form of development for a decade, delayed multiple times, one due to be released in less than two months. Granted, the letter that accompanied our preview copy of Too Human did warn that our pre-release build was not "final retail code" and may have gameplay bugs that "will be addressed in the final retail game."

That was certainly taken into consideration as I completed Too Human's first two chapters, but some of the core issues I had with the game aren't the kinds of things that will likely be ironed out in the final thrust of development.

After going hands-on with Too Human for the first time at GDC, I was primarily concerned about the game's combat mechanics. They certainly take some getting used to. The player will use the right analog stick for melee attacks, simply pointing in the direction of the enemy to target it. While that may sound straightforward enough, being trained to use the right stick for aiming or camera control by previous action games may lead to some initial awkwardness.

You can spice up your attacks by lobbing robotic foes into the air with a double tap of the stick, keeping them aloft with gunfire, but that tactic felt largely pointless. As a Champion class character, bullets and laser-fire are no match for my hammer or sword, so I found myself doing it only out of obligation, occasionally an attempt to break the monotony.

It seemed more appropriate for me, as a Champion, to limit myself to melee combo chains and air attacks only, in an effort to raise my experience bonus and build up a cache of Ruiner moves — those screen clearing attacks that are accompanied by a light show and, later, a spirit animal (mine's a raven!). This leads to same rather repetitive gameplay. Adding to that repetition was a limited bestiary, some rather mundane puzzle solving and long stretches of slogging through wave after wave of enemies.

Too Human isn't just about swordplay and shooting, it's also about the hunt for loot. One of the more addictive aspects of titles like Diablo, World of Warcraft or Phantasy Star Online is the finding of something precious. Silicon Knights looks to have added loot in spades. There are swords, staves, pistols, rifles, leggings, helms and much, much more, all with various attributes and upgrades to collect. You'll regularly find, buy and build stuff that's better than what you're currently equipped with.

The interface for dealing with your massive amounts of loot is handy. Items that have better stats than your current equipment are shown in yellow. Less favorable stats are listed in red. You'll be able to salvage your unwanted goods from any point, no trekking back to a retailer to resell your outdated chest piece. Just hit the "Y" button. There's a hitch there, though, there's no going back to "town" until you're done with the quest at hand. That means item repairs will have to wait. There's also no way to stock up on health potions or green herbs or whatever one needs to heal their wounds. You'll have to settle for random Health Orb drops.

That means, unless you're of the self-healing BioEngineer class, you might die. You might die a lot. My character, Shin, has died 23 times in six hours. That's 23 times I've had to watch the rather long, unskippable scene of a gleaming white Valkyrie descend from the heavens and revive me. Good thing there is almost no tangible penalty to death... or is that a bad thing?

You might consider your in-game deaths bad if you expire because of Too Human's frustrating camera system. There are something like seven camera styles to choose from — like standard, near, far, iso and strategic — but all have their share of quirks. It wasn't uncommon for the camera to be pointing just slightly in the wrong direction, with something important out of sight. There's no free look while in motion either, you must pause the action to look around. One can reset the camera behind Baldur's back with the left bumper, but at times the game will override your chosen camera angle or simply refuse to reset it to your liking.

There are plenty of rough edges in Too Human, from questionable interface choices to the oddly placed voiceover to some very unattractive graphics. Some of the game's visuals are strong, others are just plain ugly. Too Human's mechanical beings look fine, but its flesh and blood humanoid characters can look downright ugly. Animation is stiff, lip synching is clumsy and never is the uncanny valley more prevalent than in some of the game's cut scenes. Character models have obviously been given a great deal of detail, but even in the game's major players, faces have sharp angles and poorly rendered hair, visual blights that do a disservice to the games cinematic portions.

There's much more to be explored in Too Human. Obviously, there's the second half of the game's core campaign, the cooperative multiplayer mode, and the game's five character classes. And we have yet to touch on the game's storyline. We'll have more hands-on impressions of these aspects of the game throughout the week.

Those on board with reinterpreted Norse mythology and cyber-gods and giant glowing bears? Say you're "For." If you think the whole thing stinks of puerile fantasy and bad art? Consider yourself an "Against."

Dyack writes "When the game is released and everyone plays game all the speculation will be over. If I am wrong and gamers in general think the game is 'crap' then I am comfortable with getting tagged 'Owned by the GAF'." Every single other person who thinks or hopes the game will be an epic failure gets their own tag — "Owned by Too Human."

Yes, it's that sound of an idea. Unquantifiable and as ill-conceived as nearly any industry figurehead attempting to interact with or counteract the bad publicity of the internet's anonymous trolls.

I don't think I'll be weighing in with my own GAF username — my awful tag is just awful enough, thank you, mods — but I can't say I'm not a fan of the drama. Not sure how big a fan I am of Too Human, yet, though. In fact, I think I'll go play some Too Human, right now and sort that out.

Too Human - Stand and be counted [NeoGAF]

Speaking to GameDaily, though, Dyack also said he thinks we'll see continuing consolidation in the games industry itself, with the big publishers eating up the smaller ones until there are only a few major companies left for all products, Hollywood-style.

Of course, bigger publishers are less agile, and this future for the business is pretty bleak as far as risk and innovation goes. Dyack said that studios will be challenged in maintaining their independence and creativity:

"It is definitely more difficult to stay independent as time goes on. However, we really don't think about this very much, and instead turn our focus and attention toward what is best for moving the interactive entertainment medium forward. Making excellent games helps pave the way for the future of any developer, and any developer's mantra should be 'quality first.'"

Dyack: Future Will Only See Handful of Publishers [GameDaily]

The Crucible trailer also led some to draw the conclusion that it was the unnamed title that Silicon Knights was developing as a follow-up to Too Human. Sega has since denied that the trailer is that particular project, with a rep going on record saying "it’s definitely not the project that Silicon Knights and SEGA are producing." The carefully worded statement doesn't rule out that the game is ultimately Sega's, but it does tell us to expect something "soon."

Sega: Supposedly Leaked Silicon Knights Title Is Not Our Game [MTV Multiplayer]

In even better news, Denis writes that "there will be plenty of time for press to critique Too Human as they will receive evaluation copies well in advance of the release date." We're expecting to get a new preview build pretty soon and look forward to spending plenty of time with the game.

End Game Approaches [Silicon Knights Blog]

I've been involved in a lot of IP creation within Silicon Knights and as the company grows, I have to look at whether I want to continue to be president and director, and I'm leaning towards staying creative... I'll certainly lend a hand wherever I can but there's...going to [be] a director for every project. So, in the end as the company grows, for my role I'll probably hire someone to be my boss and help run the company, which is kind of a weird thing, and I actually won't run the company while I continue to work at what is the company's bread and butter, which is original IPs with great stories and game concepts that are provocative to gamers.

There is a chance; we love all the games we work on. We don't want to be pigeon-holed [into a genre], we want to be known for strong content...There's a strong chance we'll return to it, but there's no announcements yet.

Dyack: Strong Chance Of Eternal Darkness Return News [TVG]

While the multiplayer aspect may be more limited—at least for this entry in the planned trilogy—that doesn't mean looting droid corpses for an Angelic Skull Splitter Staff of Rising Bellow will be any less fun. Besides, this game has giant bear spirits. Who could complain when you can harness the power of ethereal bears?! New co-op trailer above, new screen shots after the jump. Absorb!

Too Human, from when we started to work on the game for the 360, has been a trilogy. For the first game, the theme is discovery; the second game, the theme is revenge; the third game is enlightenment. We know exactly what's going to happen from beginning to end. It's planned out in such a way that there is without question a reason for the three parts. If there would have been a reason for four parts, we wouldn't call it a trilogy, we would call it a... canto, I guess.

So consider this post the equivalent of making a funny face after eating some food and saying, "This tastes funny. Try it."

The Goblin Man of Normandy [NFC]

In fact, that's what retailer GameStop just did, putting a new ETA on Too Human for August. It's yet another placeholder date, but generally these things are moved around for a reason, so the game may just need extra, extra polish. They're most likely just making sure that sound effect they used in the last level fits in here. *Pyew!* That one.

Too Human [GameStop - thanks, Travis]

Everyone needs to firmly understand that the console manufacturers have a closed model. If they win market dominance, it moves the market toward a monopoly, because it's not an open, competitive market. If Nintendo wins 95% of the market, it definitely becomes a monopoly, because if they control the hardware, they control everything else. The current parties who are involved in pushing forward closed systems will never want a single-console future, because it goes against the current business model that they're trying to apply.

What I'm saying is going to happen is that the economics of the industry will not continue to support multiple closed models. It's too difficult, it's becoming too expensive to create games, and eventually — it's really switched from back in the really early days of the NES, when people would do almost anything to get a Nintendo license to work on the hardware. Now look at Grand Theft Auto IV and how Microsoft is paying lots of money to get it as an exclusive or even just get it on their system.

Those kind of market forces, the actual economics, are really going to change things. Not only are the third parties going to want a single console, I think eventually the first parties are going to start considering it. They're spending a tremendous amount of money on research and development, and if they can't win their closed market competition, then they might look at it and say, "Is this really worth it?" like Sega has in the past.

It's not a matter of console manufacturers wanting to change, it's a matter of whether the economy of the videogames industry can continue to support the current model. If you talk to developers and publishers, you see a lot of groups disappearing now, a lot of closures of developers, because the economy is so hard. If all the third parties go away, there's not going to be a games industry, so something's got to give somewhere.

I think stories like [the ones in the books] Hyperion or Altered Carbon or very serious science fiction — we need to get stories to that level in the video game industry... Bubblegum stories are OK, but there's no reason we can't aspire to do more for those who want to do more. Certainly there's room for everything. If Too Human can say anything, it's that it can be done, and we should at least attempt to try.

And what I think — it's really interesting, that I didn't know that, that all the major hits had been significantly delayed... Hopefully that will bode well for Too Human. In the end, we could only make the type of games that we're proud of making, and we just, from Silicon Knights' perspective, we will not give in to anything else. We just won't let it happen.

Bad things. You know, I've got a sort of samurai mentality on some level. Just sort of the Bushido code. One of the main tenants is: Prepare yourself for death. And if you don't fear death, then you don't have to worry about it, you don't concentrate on it.

So I think with this industry, that's pretty important. You know, if I worried about dying every day, I'd be all-consumed. Because there are so many things, and so many problems that could occur. And I don't want to concentrate on that goal. I don't want to be distracted by some negative possibility when I can focus on the positive. So, yeah, it would be really, really bad, and in some sense... Would it kill us? I don't know. We'd probably recover.

The mystery "third-person action/psychological thriller" may very well be published by Sega, however, as SK prez Denis Dyack has said the relationship with the label is a "long term opportunity." We trust that Denis knows exactly what a long term opportunity is and look forward to learning more about Eternal Darkness II. Oops, I mean, whatever "Project Number 3" is going to be.

Eternal Darkness 2? [TooHuman.net]

After pulling Crecente from SFIV, we'll be scoring impressions of Silicon Knights' Too Human. Ahh, but we've all seen Too Human before, you say? True, but that was way back at E3 2006 when it was gliding along the show floor at a smooth 15fps. A lot has happened since 2006. Silicon Knights sued Epic, E3 died and we started wearing skirts. So be sure to tune in next week for our full impressions.

Niagara has always been an industrial city and that's starting to change. We're going to start seeing things in this region that people are not used to.

It writes refreshingly of Too Human: Part I, that "Claiming up front that your game is going to be a trilogy in the tradition of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings is a bold statement. After all, Weekend at Bernie's only made it to two movies. Too Human has an intriguing story-based plot that may very well live up to that claim. Play as a cybernetically enhanced Norse god as you defend humanity from evil machines."

You may remember project lead Denis Dyack writing that a "firm date with tons of new info is coming soon" back in August of last year. That means we're now doubly informed, possibly knowing Too Human's planned ship date and that "soon" means "within the next six months" to Dyack.

Thanks for the pointer, Mike!

Silicon Knights' Dyack: Quebec Game Company Subsidies 'Insane' [Gamasutra]

No, we're not involved in any of the actions between Silicon Knights and Epic - that's a relationship that they will figure out. But we are deeply involved with making sure that the future of Gears and the first iteration of Too Human are great games on our platform. At a technical level we've done work on both games to help further — in the case of Gears — squeeze out ever bit of power out of the 360, and — in the case of Too Human — set the foundation for a franchise... We're playing Too Human now at MGS and, as I say — while it's obviously not finished it's definitely showing the promise it showed a few years ago.

Eds Note: Pics of Microsoft's Phil Spencer are appreciated. We'd love to give him a GIANT FACE.

Imagine a unified platform — one console for all gamers — that would bring a massive paradigm shift to the games industry, where games would become better in quality, cheaper, and more widely available. Sound good? It can happen. Better yet, it's inevitable. It will happen... A one-console future is a future I think we can't avoid - and thankfully, it's a future where everyone would win.

The market is also split in an unhealthy way between the major manufacturers. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all may have equal marketshare this generation, making it extremely difficult for third-party publishers to choose what platform to focus on.

Not that it's easy for first-party manufacturers, either. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have put tremendous resources into trying to make the best hardware, including spending significant amounts of money trying to get exclusive mega-titles like Grand Theft Auto on their system first.

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.