Oh. Dear. Excuse me for being so personal with this news, but I fear this is sad news for us all...

IGN.com has posted a piece of news which seems to have come out of the blue.

IGN have claimed that Denis Dyack, president of the development company behind Eternal Darkness and responsible for the updated Metal Gear Solid game The Twin Snakes has told them "Silicon Knights and Nintendo have agreed to mutually part ways"

"Nintendo and Silicon Knights have reached an agreement allowing Silicon Knights to pursue its vision of videogame entertainment with other companies," said a Nintendo of America spokesperson. "Nintendo respects the creative work of Silicon Knights and the parties have left the door open to work on future projects that meet the creative vision of both companies."

Though no official reason was given for the decision, IGNcube speculates that the philosophies of the two companies did not mesh. Silicon Knights has always been a very content-driven studio with strong beliefs in the elements of game creation including story, artistry, sound, and technology. Nintendo has recently downplayed the role of technology in game creation and has been known to de-emphasize story, graphics and sound in favor of classic play mechanics.

Asked if today's news meant Silicon Knights would not continue to develop for Nintendo platforms, Denis Dyack said: "No it doesn't. It's possible that we may do another game with Nintendo, actually. It just means that we've decided to break our exclusivity with Nintendo."

So what does this mean for us gamers? Well it means that Too Human, in development since the previous millenium will shift consoles again after already moving from Sony's PSX across to the Nintendo side of things. To read up on Too Human click here.

No more Too Human, a game classed by many to be the potential console shifter needed for Nintendo, or at least no more exclusivity anyway. The only other game Silicon Knights have released for the 'Cube was Eternal Darkness, a personal favourite, which is thought to have had a sequel in development which (if so) would now be a multi-platform game.

If you ask me, this is a damning blow to Nintendo. Silicon Knights was one of the aces of their pack, along with Retro Studios they were considered to be one of the 'replacements' for the sale of Rareware to Microsoft... If this news is true I suggest we all light a candle for the 'loss'. Admittedly we should still be getting their games, but I for one will not be able to play their games without a taste of bitterness anymore...

*lights a candle*