Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Unreal 3 Engine to Skip the Wii

Posted by Zonk on from the it's-okay-wii-you-can-still-be-mario's-friend dept.

Mark Rein, speaking with Chris Kohler and Game|Life, has stated that Epic's next-gen Unreal engine will never make it to the Wii. Touting the virtues of high-definition gaming, the 360, and the PS3, Rein said that their engine is simply not designed for Nintendo's hardware. He also quickly mentioned the upcoming deal between Epic and Square Enix: "It's definitely a challenge to convince Japanese developers to work with a third-party technology like ours. But Square Enix, they're the granddaddy. I'm hoping that'll be pulling the stopper out of the drain, and we'll gradually crack that nut. We've been looking to hire somebody in Japan, to be our representative there. " Update: 02/06 04:19 GMT by Z : Accidentally misattributed the interview to CVG when it was a Game|Life piece. Fixed. Also, Chris made sure to point out that a partner of Epic's is trying to get UE3 onto the Wii, so ... maybe someday?

4 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. No Wii? by bendodge · · Score: 0, Troll

    Fine, shoot yourself in the foot. (I bet it's because of an under-the-table deal...)

    --
    The government can't save you.
  2. And Wii Owners Rejoiced! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    There really is no better way for a company to let the gaming world know that they just don't give a shit than to crap out a game with UE3. Although with the outright screenshot fraud Epic has been pulling with garbage like Gears of War, bogus high rez marketing shots with massive AA applied, it's not really surprising that crappy game dev execs are falling for the Epic marketing spiel.

    Downside for Wii owners? No bumpy/shiny bald space marines for you!

    That a company is actually managing to sell a low-poly massively overly normal mapped graphics engine that was ripped of from the old Doom 3 engine designed to work around the shitty x86 bus architecture by minimizing graphics traffic across the bus should be a good indication of just how fucked up things are in the game dev world.

  3. No big deal by LukeCage · · Score: 0, Troll

    That's no big deal. The Unreal engines, at their core, are nothing more than flashy-graphic delivery packages. Heck, if they port Unreal Engine 2 to the Wii, who cares? The Wii has been touting gameplay over graphics since it's conception; not having the abolutely cutting-edge and latest bloom/particle/shading techniques shouldn't make a bit of difference to the average Wii owner (and if it does, why don't they own a PS3 or 360?)

    1. Re:No big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      I don't know why you haven't been modded insightful yet. Your post was dead-on.

      Some of the people posting to this discussion are acting hurt about this decision, yet they're in the same crowd of people who've been saying all along that they Wii doesn't need better graphics. There really are benefits to a nice looking game. Many Wii games look nice, but the best Wii game will never look as nice as the best 360 or PS3 game. They've seemed all along to be saying, "that doesn't matter to us," but I think this decision reveals an important truth. It really does matter.

      I think Wii fans need to come to grips with the fact that if they want this particular thing, they shouldn't be looking at the game maker, hey should be looking at the game machine. If they've deciding that graphics are cool after all, they should stop trying to convince everyone the Wii can be all things to all people, and realize that is is a notable weak area.

      I don't understand the shame in admitting that the graphics on the 360 and PS3 are superior and thats a major bullet point in their favor. All three companies have already come to grips with this in a very public way. Why do the Wii fans so desperately want to believe the Wii can compete in the visuals?