Epic Games president Mike Capps cares not for the massive audience of Wii owners salivating for a decent game not based on Nintendo IP, he cares only about technology. “We go forward, not back. It makes more sense for us to invest in the next-generation tech,” he said in a recent IGN interview.
Midway and Epic today announced that the king of twitch shooters, Unreal Tournament 3 will be shipping this Summer. The Xbox 360 version features two new characters, five new maps and split-screen multiplayer.
Midway has finally announced a European release date for the PS3 port of Unreal Tournament 3 - February 22, 2008. The game has already sold over 1.2 million copies, and we suspect it’ll move a few more once it hits the PAL territories. No word on an Australian release date.
The PC version of the highly-anticipated Unreal Tournament 3 has been given a release date for North America. The game is set to hit shelves on November 19th, and while it has not been officially announced, is expected in Europe on the 23rd.
Sadly no dates have been eluded to for either the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360. Things are sounding good for the console versions though, with Epic’s Mark Rein saying this about the PS3 build:
“I was playing the PS3 build for a few hours tonight and it is really, really fantastic, […] It’s amazingly smooth and solid. I think you PS3 users are in for a huge treat with UT3.”
via MCV
As we near the PC release of Gears of War, it’s a shock to hear that the multiplayer mode was very nearly scrapped from the initial Xbox 360 version. President of Epic Games, Mike Capps revealed the fact at this year’s Leipzig Games Convention:
“I was going to cut multiplayer from Gears because I thought it wasn’t coming together fast enough, right, […] The day before E3 I’m like ‘no guys, it’s not pulling together.’ And they made it, they pulled it together, and then we won every award.”
It boggles the mind to think that the ridiculously popular Xbox Live modes nearly missed the cut, and proves an important point - your boss isn’t always right.
The PC version of Gears of War will hit stores on November 6.
via Gaming Today
After reports Epic Games were so under-staffed they were unable to offer support to licensees of the Unreal Engine, one would think Mark Rein would’ve been a bit more careful about his excuse for the lack of a PlayStation 3 demo for Unreal Tournament III.
What we told Microsoft last year - they wanted a demo for Gears of War and we said ‘you’ve got a choice - you can have the demo this year or the game this year’… We’re not a big huge company with the resources to do that, and all the time we’re testing that demo we’re not testing our full game, which we need to be doing constantly… We’ll have a PC demo for UT, [but] I don’t think we’ll have a PS3 demo before the game ships.
via Kotaku
IGN’s GameSpy has signed a licensing agreement with Unreal Engine 3 creator Epic Games that will incorporate GameSpy’s online multiplayer technology into the successful game engine. Licensees of the engine will be able to inject GameSpy’s multiplayer technology, such as communication tools, competition apps, matchmaking, stat tools, community features, leaderboards and future feature sets, into future releases. Mark Rein from Epic says Gamespy’s technology is a “huge value-add for Unreal Engine 3”.
The agreement will pave the way for cross-platform play between PC and PS3 versions of the game. And although GameSpy boasts that it’s got the technology to make total cross-platform play a reality, they will have to settle for this milestone while Microsoft and others catch up.
Epic Games have filed a motion to dismiss the Silicon Knights suit, and filed a counterclaim stating Silicon Knights were aware that “the Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them.”
The suit goes on to say:
Indeed, the plain language of the Silicon Knights’ Complaint makes clear that Silicon Knights wants to take Epic’s Licensed Technology, pay nothing for it, and use it any way it pleases.
Epic is seeking “compensatory and punitive damages, the destruction of infringing goods, including infringing computer code, and attorney’s fees and costs” totalling $650,000.
Silicon Knights’ attorney Chris Holland told GameDaily.biz:
We don’t think Epic’s counterclaim has any merit […] We believe strongly that our claims in our complaint will prevail and the damages Silicon Knights has suffered in connection with its original complaint are vastly more, millions of dollars more than what Epic claims its damages are in its counterclaim. They’ve set forth $650,000 and our claims will dwarf that substantially.
So what does this all mean to you? Not much. Holland insists Too Human will not be affected at all by the on-going legal shenanigans regarding its development - “we are back on track and this game is going to come out in a timely fashion.”
via Joystiq
