Unreal Engine 4 Focuses on Consoles
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
