Square Enix sure loves teasers. Earlier this month, they revealed a screenshot for a new game in the pages of Official PlayStation Magazine. Now they have another teaser, this time in the form of a website.

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.

Despite hitting some snags in the form of Sega, SCEA, Capcom, and Microsoft backouts, it appears E for All is gaining steam after getting big boosts from dozens of other movers in the gaming industry who have confirmed participation. To prove that E for All is going smoothly as planned, IDG World Expo is now announcing that Future US, Inc. will be publishing the official show magazine for the said event.

This is big news especially for those who are familiar in the ins and outs of attending conventions like this. Why? Event magazines not only provide attendees with a good source of show floor guide, exhibitor and product information, special features and interviews, it's also a great souvenir - it goes right beside event press IDs and pictures with booth babes. Anyway, IDG World Expo CEO Mary Dolaher expressed the same enthusiasm after saying:

We're thrilled to team up with Future to create "E for All Magazine," the event’s official show publication. Given Future’s experience producing publications such as Official Xbox Magazine, PSM: Independent PlayStation Magazine, PC Gamer, Maximum PC and Next Gen, we’re greatly anticipating the creation of a top-notch magazine and commemorative keepsake for this inaugural event.

The magazine will be a 64-page collector's edition in support of the inaugural E for All. Contents will include feature stories, game reviews, product highlights, a full expo schedule, floor plan and exclusive features, interviews with acclaimed game developers, and a user-generated car art from Forza 2. E for All magazine will also carry a commemorative cover to give spice to the said event which will take place October 18-21 at the Los Angeles Convention Center - told you it's a keeper.

Future, the company that publishes the "Official" line of gaming magazines has reported significant growth in readership from its web and print portfo;ios in the past months thanks in large part to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo wings.

Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine is now officially the fastest-growing game publication in the United Kingdom, circulating 65,673 copies during the past year, clinching a total annual growth of 54 percent.

The Official Nintendo Magazine also did well as a result of the immense and still growing popularity of the DS handheld and the Wii console. The rise in readership was tallied at 35 percent which translated in 47,925 total copies sold.

Future reported declines in the circulation of the Official PlayStation Magazine but explained that this is due to the seasonal lull in game industry activity. It also said that recovery was promising after Blu-ray demo discs were included with each issue after June.

Slow activity was also observed in the multiplatform publications under Future along with its PC-gaming interests. However, it said that its websites GamesRadar and CVG attract 3.25 and 1.56 million users a month respectively.

 

Cooperating with the Official Xbox Magazine, Xboxic alerts the intertubes about several details regarding Namco's much awaited Beautiful Katamari.

After a short background on what Katamari Damacy is all about - the Prince of all Cosmos rolling stuff from matchsticks, and Lego blocks all the way to islands, hopes, and dreams - it is noted that the all-new VS mode should allow you to fight three friends simultaneously online, with each of you trying to achieve that stage's goal.

It was also revealed that, compared to the previous games having only about 1500 different objects to pick up, this latest installment should allow the Prince and his cousins to pick up a variety of objects now numbering up to 5000. What's interesting about the report is that it notes that a Wii version is currently being "researched." This means that there's still hope for those singing "na-na-nana-nana-na-na-Katamari-for-the-Wii..."

The June issue of the Official Xbox Magazine should hit stands come May 8, hopefully featuring more details and previously unseen screenshots for the game.

If Digital Battle, the source of this, is as skeptical as we are, we can't blame them. They say they found that what-the-heck in the rumor section of the Official Xbox Magazine, April issue. Yeah, "Happy April Fool's Day" is a potential theory.

Digital Battle points out that this might be a long-shot possibility, though, citing what Ed Boon said last year in the annual Fight Night Chat: "Mortal Kombat 8... will also go in a direction that nobody is going to expect" (MMO? We could imagine an RTS Mortal Kombat where you Zerg Liu Kang clones...).

We still want to to lean more in the direction of "Happy April Fool's Day"... although the concept behind a Mortal Kombat MMO isn't that too hard to imagine, if martial arts-themed games like 9Dragons are any clue. Still, it looks like the two most-spammed skills in such a game will be Fatalities... and Resurrection.