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http://www.elspa.com/about/charts/charts.asp

Well the UK's had a mix of voluntary (currently PEGI, previously ELSPA) and law-backed (BBFC) ratings for video games for many many years (films are all BBFC-rated), and I don't see it turning into full-on control of what kids can see any time soon in the future... I doubt it would happen in the US either, but I could be wrong.

It's a slightly different situation in the UK than in the USA. All films must get a classification from the BBFC while games tend to get a rating by the voluntary PEGI (or the older ELSPA). However certain games must also be submitted to the BBFC (e.g. GTA:SA has a BBFC 18 rating). On videos (and I believe also on games) these ratings are legally binding. For films shown at the cinema on the other hand, it's up to the local authority, however these nearly always use the BBFC rating (spiderman was one exception). The voluntary systems aren't legally binding and both Game and Amazon describe them as guidelines and don't give the impression that they enforce them.

On the subject of the R18 rating, this is used almost exclusively for hardcore porn and can only be sold in specially licenced shops (of which there are apparently about 90 in the UK)

Any analysis of the XBox manufacturing story is incomplete without looking at how Flextronics (the XBox manufacturer) recently told us they will be pulling XBox manufacturing out of Mexico and Hungary (the two current locations of XBox factories) and going into China. Flextronics is taking a serious financial hit. They made a financial gamble on the XBox and they are losing it bigtime. The low margin at which they are manufacturing the XBox only made business sense if the XBox moved in volume and it isn't. Console prices go down and profits goes up when the volume of the pieces goes up. That isn't happening with XBox. It has flopped in Japan and flopped in Europe.

So the behind the scenes story of the XBox is rather simple: the Flextronics gamble failed so at this point Flextronics is cutting their loses. Flextronics is losing big money on this deal and they are scared shitless at losing more.

Microsoft has also stated that they are looking at other manufacturing partners for the XBox. The only question here is can they find another sucker like Flextronics who will be willing to take the same plunge. Its highly doubtful. Who wants to work with Microsoft at this point when all they have to do is look at the Microsoft/NVidia mix up which basically amounts to Microsoft refusing to pay what they said they would.

Microsoft is poisoning the well and destroying all chances they have in the future of securing hardware partnerships for the XBox2. They are a fish out of water. They are accustomed to abusing their business parters and getting away with it because they are the monopoly.

And the entire fiasco from another perspective: no one cares about the human beings who lost their jobs (in Mexico and Hungary) because the international manufacturing juggernaut (Flextronics) decided to axe their livelihoods in order to "serve their customers better".

Links:

Hungary XBox plant shutdown
XBox software sales in Europe

I personally don't understand the double standard with sex vs. violence. If we declare sexual material to be dangerous to a young person's mind, why isn't violent material held up to the same standard, and forbidden by law?

This goes some way to explaing why a non American didn't get the point of this story - in the UK sex and violence do fall under the same categories with respect to videos and video games.

There is self policing by ELSPA (European Leisure Software Publishers Association) but video games also fall under the auspices of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Whilst the ELSPA ratings are purely voluntary (Damn - I even use google as my spell checker!) the BBFC ones have legal force.

Looking at my PSone games (my PS2 games are too tame) I see that 'Resident Evil' and 'DOOM' merit a 15 and 'Duke Nukem' gets the maximum 18 suggesting that violence is rated less than sexual content over here.

Emotional maturity is not a function of age

Indeed, but parents (the ones with the votes) probably are in favour or laws preventing their kids from buying material they deem unsuitable. If the parents are die hard libertarians then they can buy what they want for their kids as long as they take responsibility for whatever their kids do subsequently.

Porn and Doom didn't turn my teenage self into a sex-crazed homicidal maniac. Maybe I didn't get enough!

Me too! Personally I don't believe that pr0n and DOOM turn anyone into into sex-crazed homicidal maniacs - the nutters were that way inclined anyway IMHO.