Does make you wonder how much spare money Autodesk has got unless they get more loans or something to make the purchase, they bought what alias, the people who made mudbox and this realviz they mention in the article. All those wouldnt have been cheap Id imagine except for maybe mudbox because it seems to be more of a startup deal so it didnt have time to grab a foot hold.
Something to mention also is Epic china seems to be a secondary party to Epic US as they offer service for anyone wanting assets so I dont think thats limited to working with Epic US on projects. I think the article has it right in saying autodesks primary focus would be the engine and not the game development so if there was such a bid, Epic might stay as Epic but unreal engine would change hands and perhaps some of the key staff would be taken on in that department at autodesk.
One problem I do see in this is its just another piece of software for autodesk to maintain ontop of max and maya, so unless they are looking to actually mold something out of the three or something to that effect it could be less cost effective than its worth.
On the flipside they get the engine and all its support from other companies who probably wouldnt mind the new ownership, under MS I could see EA becoming warey and there is a possbility of more anti-trust talk with the amount of UE3 titles hitting MS platforms. As the article says though itd loose a key selling point which is PS3 compatibility. Autodesk might not be focused just on archviz though, they might also be interested in the IPP which Epic no doubt shares many of the same clients with Autodesk. If there is companies Epic is getting over autodesk on their end then that could expand possbilities for max/maya or other autodesk software intergration. That is assuming those people stay onboard under new management
