ShackNews Interview With Cliff Bleszinski

proceed

lol, we're not making a wii game. That seems a bit blunt. They shouldn't discriminate so easily. The wii may prove to be a powerful cash cow for epic in the future.

Well, as he mentioned 2 consoles they're not going to make games on, so maybe that means we'll have more for our PCs soon

xbox live? That doesn't cover the whole console mind you

dang no jazz jackrabbit

Am I the only one that thinks that a Gears RTS (done well, of course) could actually be kinda cool?

Hmm... Something like RA2 on UE would be nice Or actually, look at USkaarj, it's even possible

... given that the Wii is hands down the first place console... and given that both Metroid Prime and Conduit have /are proven / proving that Wii can do gorgeous visuals... and that the Wii does have the best control scheme for the FPS genre...

I seriously doubt that Epic doesn't have at least one team working on bringing a Wii game to reality. I can almost see them re-working UT'99 to Wii motion controls actually.

we're not gonna be making a Wii game,

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his hate for the wii shines right through

Aww, no Jazz Jackrabbit

It's not so much that Epic hates the Wii or whatever, it probably has more to do with the fact that it doesn't fit into the business model right now what so ever. Unreal Engine 3 is really going to struggle to run well within the Wii's hardware. It requires full screen resolution pixel shading (every pixel on the screen is pixel shaded, some pixels a few times over even, depending on the scene) for a start. This is a rather demanding technique, and it only became really feasible with the advent of universal shaders from nVidia and ATi.

Going back to old technology and retooling it for a new purpose doesn't seem to fit into what Epic plans are. There is still a lot of room for Unreal Engine 3 to expand on, and to continue further iteration on. While there were 'subtle' changes from Unreal Engine 3 within Gears of War and Gears of War 2 (if you were to compare screenshots/stills you can see that there is a lot of nice improvements that have been done) there has been a lot of work behind the scenes too that you don't see immediately from the visuals. From a development standpoint, Epic is doing a really nice job focusing on tools and making them work for other companies. Thus, it seems that a lot of their efforts are going towards making Unreal Engine 3 a good choice for development teams to pick up over other engines out there ... and that's really their main business model.

I mean yeah, they're making games as well too. But with the gaps between major releases spanning two or more years, you have to keep the cash flow too.

StreetPreacher said:

Am I the only one that thinks that a Gears RTS (done well, of course) could actually be kinda cool?

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Yes, yes I do. Leave it to the mod community.

unreal 3 hardly runs on 360 pc and ps3, it would be a miracle to make it work on the Wii

Water down the engine, or just 2.5 ,.. call it "Gears of Wii: Total Saturation" (of the market, not blood of course)

"Your mother is a classy lady!" indeed

Of course Nintendo would ruin it by making sure Mario was at least an unlockable character.

Saist said:

seriously doubt that Epic doesn't have at least one team working on bringing a Wii game to reality. I can almost see them re-working UT'99 to Wii motion controls actually.

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Hey, I already play Quake on the Wii; all Epic would have to do would be to open source the Unreal 1 engine and within a week or two someone would port it to the Wii. Irregardless, if they re-released UT99 for the Wii I'd snatch it up immediately; in the meantime though I've been loving eluancm's work on QuakeWii, definitely the best Wii FPS, and entirely justifies the Quake 1 data files I've been keeping around. If Epic wanted to they could either release the game themselves or allow people to do so; the fact that there's no Epic Wii game yet speaks volumes.

Unreal Engine 2.5 does work on the wii, its only too bad that a decent game wasn't made on it. Red Steel uses UE2.5, I don't know if any other games do.

irregardless is not a word btw. Just regardless works.

Water down the engine, or just 2.5 ,.. call it "Gears of Wii: Total Saturation" (of the market, not blood of course)

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Unfortunately, it will take quite some work to 'water down' the engine in particular removing the pixel shader style renderer since a lot of the technology they've written revolves around how it renders the scene.

As far as I know, Epic stopped supporting Unreal Engine 2.x for a very long time now.

Like I said recently, you can call me whatever the hell you want

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...except Cliffy B

Shack: I thought the credits in Gears 2 were a nice touch. [The credits feature a personalized message and photograph for each team member.]

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...because Gears 2 was the first game to do that

[SAS]Solid Snake;2214587 said:

It's not so much that Epic hates the Wii or whatever, it probably has more to do with the fact that it doesn't fit into the business model right now what so ever. Unreal Engine 3 is really going to struggle to run well within the Wii's hardware. It requires full screen resolution pixel shading (every pixel on the screen is pixel shaded, some pixels a few times over even, depending on the scene) for a start. This is a rather demanding technique, and it only became really feasible with the advent of universal shaders from nVidia and ATi.

Going back to old technology and retooling it for a new purpose doesn't seem to fit into what Epic plans are. There is still a lot of room for Unreal Engine 3 to expand on, and to continue further iteration on. While there were 'subtle' changes from Unreal Engine 3 within Gears of War and Gears of War 2 (if you were to compare screenshots/stills you can see that there is a lot of nice improvements that have been done) there has been a lot of work behind the scenes too that you don't see immediately from the visuals. From a development standpoint, Epic is doing a really nice job focusing on tools and making them work for other companies. Thus, it seems that a lot of their efforts are going towards making Unreal Engine 3 a good choice for development teams to pick up over other engines out there ... and that's really their main business model.

I mean yeah, they're making games as well too. But with the gaps between major releases spanning two or more years, you have to keep the cash flow too.

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That's not a business model, its a graphics model.

The business model is this: In the current state of the (US) economy, if people buy anything frivolous, price point is an important consideration. people are a lot more likely to plunk down the price of a wii than the price of a ps3, no matter how much graphical ooh-ahh it has. The wii is a cash crop waiting for someone like epic to tap into. Most other companies have made SOMETHING for it. Would it kill them to do a UE2.5 game, considering that UE2.5 has been on Wii since it came out? Would it kill them to make a game with something less than their newest technology? I suppose that since UE3 is a graphics engine first and foremost (unrealscript hasn't changed a whole ton as far as I know) it's understandable, but to shoot down a console that's beating the pants off the xbox and ps3 (it's a fact, people) just because you can't put a virtual reality simulator on it is borderline retarded. Epic knows if they made something for wii, people would buy it. And isn't epic super crazy about making money? Tech tehy've already developed and can use while spending almost nothing + popular platform + fun game = PROFIT.

I understand that they're actually more about their tech now than their games. But that doesn't mean that the games they do develop can't reach as wide an audience as possible. The latest tech doesn't always sell the best. If the wii performed any better (saleswise) than the competition than it already does, sony and microsoft will be betamaxed.

(betamaxed = when your technology is made obsolete by people buying the competition's over yours despite yours being more sophisticated)