Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, has revealed that a small team is already at work on Unreal Engine 4, and that it will be tied not primarily to the PC platform, but to the next generation of consoles– the successors to the 360, PS3, and possibly the Wii.

The engine won’t be abandoning the PC completely, but Epic will be targeting the consoles first. Consoles are driving the industry more and more, reaching larger audiences and avoiding many of the piracy problems inherent to the PC side of things. It’s not such a surprising move, especially given the success of Gears of War.

This may be a good thing as far as console gamers are concerned, given the trouble that many Unreal Engine 3 games have had getting up and running on the PS3. However, it all depends on how quickly the engine is optimized for next-gen consoles, which are likely to be as different from one another next time around as they are this.

UE3 has had its downsides as well, like the way many games based on its architecture have a very similar look. Regardless, a UE4 future is quite a ways away.

UE3 isn’t going away anytime soon. Emphasizing the importance of consoles and their continued support of UE3, Sweeney says, “The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle. We will continue to improve Unreal Engine 3 and add significant new features through the end of this console cycle.” And that will be several years from now.

For Epic, historically a PC-centric developer, to create the successor to such a ubiquitous engine as UE3 for the consoles is a notable development, but not the death rattle of PC gaming.

No doubt Valve, Blizzard and other fantastic developers will continue to make the PC platform unique and viable, but consoles are encroaching more and more with their online capabilities and hi-res visuals. Bringing cutting-edge software to more people doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

Source: Develop Mag

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3 Comments » Kev Lochun on March 14, 2008 7:54 am “The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle.” I wonder… Sony have this ten year cycle planned for PS3 don’t they? I don’t see the 360 lasting that long.. so who’s cycle are Epic going to follow? Patrick Steen on March 14, 2008 8:04 am They have the same 10 year cycle as was planned for PS1 and PS2. The successor will come out 3 years before the end of the cycle – since it will continue to sell. That is, PS3 will continue to sell after the PS4 is released, just as the PS2 is still selling now. Thastrogg on May 29, 2008 11:32 am thats crazy….360 have more piracy than pc…**** unreal engine RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.