Mark Rein to consider Unreal Engine 3 for Revolution

by Ross Miller { Nov 11th 2005 at 7:45PM }

Epic's VP Mark Rein is known for his opinions, and today he tries to clarify one of his most explosive. As we have covered before, Rein alluded to some games for the Revolution destined to be 'gimmicky' - a fair assessment, but in the wrong context can sound awfully hateful (especially since, at that time, he had never used the Revolution controller). Yesterday, Jim Merrick responded by offering Rein a Revolution dev kit.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Rein mentioned that, after reading the Merrick interview, he called up Nintendo of Europe's senior VP of marketing and "had a long, very good chat." Rein confirmed that he asked for a Revolution dev kit - not committing to making games, mind you, but that he and his company will consider it. Rein actually goes so far as to suggest that "Unreal Engine 3 and Nintendo Revolution would be very well suited to each other."

Believing statements that Nintendo's upcoming console will be close to its competitors, in terms of technology, does that mean we will see some beautiful Unreal graphics on the Revolution? Stranger things have happened, and Mark Rein is not a man to look past a potential source of income.

[Thanks, Ruari and Shenzou]

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rhine @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Could i get a dev kit if i asked really nice ^_^

now if developers have dev kits would that mean they have the final chip sets and know the graphical power or will that be finalized later?

bd (formerly b) @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

"Mark Rein is not a man to look past a potential source of income."

Exactly. He's not (that) stupid after all.

"NINTENDO DOSNT HAS DEVLOPR SUPORT LOLZLOLOZLZ"

Each day, Revolution looks better.

DJCarbon43 @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

For shame Rhine! How many times do I have to tell you, you badmouth it FIRST, then ask for a devkit. I mean all those years of practise, I expected more of you...

Rhine @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

oh ok then revolution sucks !!!11!!!elevnty-one!!
[/sarcasm]

Can i have one know

but does anyone know about the question i asked, and also rev+unreal engine (drools)

Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Goodness me, sounds like productive communication and a spirit of willing to learn about what is out there in terms of making new types of games! Bestill my heart, and sign me up for a Revolution on release day!

Hachi_roku @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

This is soo sick. I bet he called Merrick expecting him to say that he was being facetious and not give him a dev kit, you know like calling his bluff or something. This is great news and all but doesnt gurantee anything yet. Its good to hear again that Rev can support the unreal engine.

Jago @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

There is nothing I respect more then someone who isn't full of $hit. I dunno why people seem to think that just b/c the Revo will be small, it will be really obvious by the graphics. People seem to forget a little thing called the "Gamecube" which was smaller then both of its competitors yet was very close to what the Xbox could do.

Stretchpants @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Who's going to pass up the chance to develop an FPS with a brand new input device? Unreal doesn't want to miss the boat (and the revenue on said boat).

Tamo @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

If the Revolution can handle the Unreal 3 Engine, that would mean that Nintendo's claims of graphics power seems to be true. The Revolution might not end up being as powerful as the PS3 or Xbox 360 but the difference probably won't be that noticable like with current gen systems(minus a few Xbox exclusive games like Ninja Gaiden).

Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

Tamo, especially considering the lack of HD support - which I think is a good thing. While yes, I think in an ideal world all games would be HD, Surround, antialiased, etc, Nintendo is getting a lot of bang for its buck with lower res graphics. Think about the frame rates you get on a PC at 800x600 compared with 1080i - 1920x1080. Antialiasing, frame buffer effects, full screen motion blurs, and all manner of things will run perfectly smoothly, whereas at high res you'd have a slideshow, just because the screen is pushing less than a quarter of the pixels to the screen. (480,000 vs. 2,073,600) Every one of those revolution pixels is going to be AWESOME. :)

Clu @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

can't you guys tell that it's been part of Nintendo's marketing ploy the whole time? Nintendo and Epic are in cahoots with each other. they just wanted to get a blog post about how a raging developer that heated Nintendo was won over by the amazing interface. it's so obvious.
I bet he had a revolution dev kit months ago. This explains his theatrical display at IGN live and why he dragged his Xbox 360 dev kit up there with him, just to seem like the biggest hater.

Doc @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

As much as I want to be excited about this (and I'm a PC gamer whose probably only getting a revolution this time round) remember that he still doesn't have a dev kit so anything he says related to it being a good match for the Unreal 3 engine ro whatever else has about as much basis as what he was saying before about it being crap and only having gimicky games. Unfortunately just because he's coming around doesn't make him automatically right all of a sudden.

Trauts @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

unreal 3... drool...

sn @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

If unreal tournament comes out on the revolution I may have to quit my job and play games all day

Psiven @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

For me Unreal Tournament has always been fun to play. It's the arcade version of an FPS and I love the gameplay elements only a arcade-shooter could allow.

Mark's comments are very promising and I can't wait to see what comes to fruition.

Spiza @ Dec 18th 2005 10:09PM

gamecube had the best graphics of this gen imo. Awesome visuals + 60fps> awesome visuals + 30fps. RE4+MP1+2>anything on xbox.

Rev may have best graphics in standard def if it is put together as smartly as the cube was. However, reggie just reiterated this week that hd will not be supported. On hdtvs, rev will be last. Look at how much better halo looks in hd with AF and AA.