After receiving praise for the iOS Epic Citadel demo released earlier this year for the iPad and iPhone, many were wondering if Epic was going to produce a game or engine for the upcoming 3DS handheld. Mark Rein, the VP of Epic Games, the makers of the Gears of War series and the Unreal Engine, was asked during a GDC online interview if his company was working on anything for the 3DS:
He went on to say that Nintendo has never approached Epic in regards to seeing if the engine is something that can be run on the 3DS hardware:
With the current number of games using the Unreal Engine, having a system that doesn’t run it is not a bad thing in my opinion. In fact it may even be a positive as most Unreal games tend to look a little too similar at times. This could encourage developers to potentially become more familiar with the hardware by not having a pre-built engine.The 3DS screenshots I have seen already look amazing for handheld games, without the use of something like the Unreal Engine.
So Ranters, what are your thoughts on these words from Mark Rein? Is this just Epic being over-confident that their engine is the way all games should be made? Or should we have an actual concern that the 3DS is less powerful than a year old iPhone?
The Nintendo 3DS is set for release sometime early next year for North America.
Source: Joystiq
