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.