Epic Engine Not for Wii, VP Says

[Junaid Alam]

Epic Engine Not for Wii, VP Says

Nintendo Wii is not the target for Epic's middleware or graphics engines, according to company Vice President Mark Rein.

In a recent interview, the Epic official said the big bucks were with the beefy consoles in this department.

"I think the problem is that it's not in our wheelhouse. I mean, what we're doing is the really high-end, next-generation visuals. We're pushing these [Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3] machines pretty hard," he said.

Rein said placing similar focus on the Wii would not yield results without investing heavy time and resources, and working closely with Nintendo on a direct basis.

"I don't think there's a lot of money on making engines for the Wii ... because the big software dollars right now are being earned on Xbox 360 and they're going to be earned on PlayStation 3, and I think unless you're going to sell your engine to Nintendo, you're going for scraps on that platform."

Epic's latest Unreal 3 engine is to be featured in a number of A-list PC, 360 and PS3 titles, not the least important of which are Unreal Tournament 3 and Mass Effect.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=29314]

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[Katana314]

I think they're being a bit zealous there about graphics. A good engine is built to be run anywhere. Congratulations on screwing over ytilibitapmoc (Zero Punct. joke), Epic. Whereas we have Source still playing games in freaking DirectX 8...and let's not forget the Wii being the top-selling game system.

 

[Ajar]

The Wii is the top-selling system, but the Xbox 360 has a comparable installed base and a higher software attach rate. That's why Rein says the big software dollars are being earned on the 360.

 

[Arbre]

Well, you can't even hope to get a decent Crysis running on the Wii, do you?

That's the point. But there's nothing really important here. And nothing new.