Epic Games could pave the way for a rush of externally-developed triple-A Wii U games
A significant step has been made in Nintendo’s new bid to capture a core games market with Wii U.
The innovative new console is being supported by two Unreal Engine games and, Develop believes, the high-end engine tech behind them.
Earlier today Nintendo revealed both Batman Arkham City and Aliens Colonial Marines in production for Wii U.
Both titles are built with Unreal Engine 3, meaning that Epic Games is very likely supporting Wii U with its popular engine.
Epic Games vice president Mark Rein said Develop’s theory on the matter “isn’t an illogical conclusion to make”, but could not comment further.
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But he did depart with a jocular hint about Epic’s future.
Last month Rein said “the second Nintendo releases a piece of hardware that can run our engine well, we'll be on it like water on fish.”
Today he tells Develop: “Water, meet fish!”
The move paves the way for a new rush of externally-developed triple-A games for the platform. Unreal Engine 3 has been the central tech to some of the biggest next-generation games in the past five years.
It is confusing to say "Wii U powered by Unreal Engine 3 tech". More accurately, "Two games for Wii U are powered by Unreal Engine 3 tech", right?
This is about 2 games being powered by UE3
But, also, it's about UE3 supporting Wii U on the whole - which could lead to a flood of third-party games.
Nintendo's third-party jinx over? Hard to tell, but this is a big, big coup for the company.
This also means that Nintendo directly approached Epic Games to bring UE3 to the Wii-U.
It's a bit like having OpenGL support, it opens the flood gates to quicker ports from existing titles and games currently in development (powered by UE3).
This is in lines with what I expected; I also wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo provided shared assets, a palette of shaders, and code libraries to lower development costs and increase the general quality of Wii-U titles. It's a long shot, but It wouldn't surprise me.
i think spending time on correcting the syntax and nitpicking and being negative on these otherwise very exciting news is counter productive :P
this is a huge win for Nintendo and ofc for developers and gamers! not to mention epic, that finally their UDK and Unreal Engine will have access to what appears to be another big success. Keep it up! Let the good games roll! :D
