Tue, May 11, 2010 | 20:37 BST
Epic expects Unreal 4 to dominate the dev market
Epic president Mike Capps has said that he’s a bit curious as to why Crytek’s CryEngine 3 is being considered a crossplatform engine when the company has yet to release a game on consoles.
Speaking with Edge, Capps said that due to CryEngine 2 and Warhead’s cancellation, he’s unsure what the company’s “position is”.
“Honestly, I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys,” said Capps regarding Cyrtek. “I know many people who work there – and I’ve hired a few, but it’s difficult for us to know what their position is.
“They’ve positioned themselves strongly as the ‘we’re gonna be on console, push one button and it’s great on all three platforms’ engine. Warhead was going to come out in 2008 and was going to be their first big console game, and then they just cut console development from CryEngine 2 entirely, and suddenly we had a new engine.
“So, they’ve yet to ship an Xbox 360 game and we’re five years in. It surprises me that people take them seriously as a crossplatform engine company. We don’t know how to compete against a company that hasn’t shipped yet. It’s all potential, so we’ll see.”
As far as the popularity of UR3 is concerned, Capps seemed rather pleased with the reception and feels that Unreal Engine 4 – which has been in the works since 2003 – will be the lead development engine on the market once released.
“Unreal Engine 3’s done remarkably well this generation, and I think that was a mix of us making an educated guess about where the tech was going to be on consoles, and the shift to console happening at the same time,” he told Edge.
“If you look at what’s happening in the PC market – Larrabee and all that – it’s really taking off, and I think the jump to next generation’s going to be another really big one, which is great for tech guys.
“Most likely, you’re not going to want to make that massive investment yourself, you’re going to look to come to a company like Epic.”
Next on Epic’s plate is Gears of War 3 which is slated for April 2011, and Bulletstorm from People Can Fly.
More through the links.
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Posted in: Development, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, hardware
Tags: cryengine 2, cryengine 3, crytek, epic, mike capps, Unreal 3, unreal engine 4, UR3
11 comments
#1
David Sarkisjan
11/05/10, 8:51 pm
It’s news to me that Warhead was supposed to be out for consoles as well. I don’t remember Crytek mentioning that. I only remember Yerli saying that they had trouble getting CE2 work on console platforms.
#2
YoungZer0
11/05/10, 8:53 pm
Why make a good game when you can just update the engine?
#3
Len
11/05/10, 9:22 pm
He sounds worried to me…
#4
Dralen
11/05/10, 9:23 pm
Will Gears of War 3 be done using Unreal 4? Or is Unreal 4 for next gen?
Also I never remember Crytek saying anything about Warhead going to consoles.
#5
Erthazus
11/05/10, 9:30 pm
@4 Facepalm.
Of course UE3.
UE4 next generation engine that will utiliza 64 bit multicore processors. We don’t have even PC in our market for this engine.
#6
Gheritt White
11/05/10, 9:33 pm
@1 & 5: Chances are he knows something you don’t… especially if he’s hired ex-CryTek staff.
#7
Stephany Nunneley
11/05/10, 10:54 pm
Back during 2008, Crytek’s business manager, Harald Seeley said that future games would not be exclusive.
He said that while Warhead had been under development for quite some time, Crytek had no desire or intention to disappoint “loyal PC fans” so decided to continue its support for the PC Crysis franchise with Warhead and wait on console development.
So, with the comment that all new franchises developed in the future being created with a cross platform strategy – Cyrsis 2 is proof, I suppose.
#8
blackdreamhunk
11/05/10, 11:39 pm
hahaha looks like epic games is now feeling the heat….ahahahahahha
#9
manamana
11/05/10, 11:40 pm
I remember latest console Crysis-screenshots left me crying … was that done with crossplatform cry-engine? *sigh*
#10
Dralen
12/05/10, 12:05 am
@Erthazus Harsh…Was only asking.
#11
Blerk
12/05/10, 8:51 am
That seems a bit bitchy, Mr Capps.
It will be interesting to see the first console games based off of CryEngine 3. Hopefully we’ll get some proper hands-on footage out of E3.