Epic's Mark Rein responds to Microsoft buyout rumor

Forgot about that, lmao! Imagine everyone seeing Microsoft's dollar signs, and jumping on the UE3 lawsuit bandwagon!

Don't see why it would be bad. It would be good business for Microsoft. They profit from the 1001 Unreal engine games out there or being worked on from all platforms. Sounds like a great deal if you are looking at it from a business perspective.

But Microsoft, as hard as it is to believe, is not the industry.

bad? understatement of the year. this would be terrible for everyone except Microsoft with as much as the Unreal Engine is used. royalties would be out that wazoo.

@PSN: KillaKornbread
If "royalties would be out that wazoo" then companies would cease to license the engine. DUH!

Microsoft buying Epic would be AMAZINGLY GOOD for the industry. Then perhaps people would stop relying on the Unreal Engine to develope their games and spread their funds to other engines or developing their own, then maybe we'd see something new and exciting!

because RPG's sell so much better than run of the mill quality shoot em ups? They wouldn't just be buying titles, they'd be buying one of the biggest, most heavily used next-gen engines on the market. One that happens to be used in nearly every genre out there. It'd be a smart move.

"because RPG's sell so much better than run of the mill quality shoot em ups? "

The big name RPGs certainly do. It would also draw more people to the system. They've got the FPS bases covered.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the only companies that make crazy amounts of money out of RPGs are Blizzard and Square Enix and I don't think either of them will sellout to MS.

Imo Epic(Megagames) is pretty damn solid,the only company better than them is Valve.

There is also Kojima productions but they release a game every 4 years or so.

They still hold the rights for Halo don't they?

Halo 4 using the Unreal engine would totally kick ass.

lol.

Steve Ballmer runs in and yells
"mmmm, a tasty baby! GET IN MY BELLY!"

Have you seen any commercials for Unreal III like you did for Gears? Even without ANY kind of hype machine, Unreal III has sold 1.2 million across the PS3 and PC.

Certainly I haven't, and when I did finally see some commercials the game had been out for a long time already! I heard that PS3 sales were okay but nowhere near expected. I was also thinking that this partnership with MS and Epic would be good because they could focus on PC and 360 instead of the "harder to develop for" PS3. That's most likely what Epic would like to do anyhow.

I own a PS3 and a PC, no 360...so keep that in mind when you evaluate my comment.

and Atari...... wait, no.

I agree. All of my game engine purchasing decisions are based solely on the logo. Damn them and damn their giant "U"!

kinshadow


Damn that was funny as hell!!!! +1

"I agree. All of my game engine purchasing decisions are based solely on the logo. Damn them and damn their giant "U"!"

You read my mind. Comment++

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/NO_U

Now the rumors say Nintendo will buy Sega but I don't think so,it would be awesome though but only if they let them be creative again.

The last good original game from Sega was Crush and no one gave a damn,too bad because it was great.

No, you see, Mark Rein is an lolcat.

excellent.

Shut up.

Hmmm. iRobot I understand your criticism about the RRoD, but your thought process as to Microsoft has no creativity is kind of a lame appeal. When someone does something so good it makes them valuable. Right? Like what epic has done with their amazing and revolutionary game engine and their games. Except for that little game for the PS3. Kind of a remake from older material put into a new box just for the PS3. So to tell Microsoft it's stupid to buy Epic is dumb. Microsoft is an agressive business. They usually enter a market just because they want to and being able to surpass other businesses that have been attempting the same goal for many years before them is nothing to be ashamed of. And by the way have you seen many games with amazing graphics as the Unreal Engine? Honestly. Watching domes get popped off on gears almost made me want to cry because of its beauty.

iRobot,

Are you functionally retarded? There are currently no other engines in the wild that can compete with the Unreal 3 engine in terms of delivering fantastic visuals on lesser hardware; a $179.99 Radeon HD 3850 can run the game with all of the settings maxed out at 1920x1220 while never hitting less than 50 FPS (it stutters at 2500x1600). Source has served the gaming community well, but it's 4 years old and is definitely showing its age. ID's Tech 5 engine is essentially the Tech 4/Doom 3 engine on steroids (enhanced megatexture technology and the addition of new lighting/shadowing technologies); people still have pointy heads and look like they're made from plastic. Square Enix's White Engine is going to stay inhouse, and Capcom can't get MtFramework to work well on multiple platforms. Ubisoft's new Scimitar engine is buggy on consoles and has obscenely high "low" requirements on the PC (it's essentially Crysis's "recommended" specs with another gig of memory). The Diesel engines behind the GRAW games are super tweaked forms of Unreal 2 technology. CryEngine2 looks fantastic, but was only meant to run comfortably on tomorrow's hardware.

What you're demanding is simply unfeasible. It takes a lot of time and money to develop an engine in-house, something few developers have. Your average Xbox 360 or PS3 game costs $10,000,000 to develop using licensed technology; the costs balloon when done in-house. Gears of War cost $10,000,000 to develop using Epic's own engine and Killzone 2's budget (the last I saw) is fast approaching $22,000,000; if Sony hadn't bought out Guerrilla Games, there would be no sequel. Metal Gear Solid 4 is rumored to exceed $30,000,000 in development costs. This is all before advertising. But hey...if you're approach is to force everyone to develop their own technology in-house, I hope you really love Duke Nukem Forever.

Did I make the all the little fanboys cry? Would you like some warm milk and a pat on the head? If you're going to react like a baby every time someone disagrees with you, maybe you should hide under the bed.

Microsoft is a company, if they feel the NEED to BUY their way to the top -- that's on them to do so. However, being a Developer -- means that you "devlop", as in to create, make from scratch. Enjoy the games - of course, but Microsoft is still Pathetic -- learn to live with it. And don't cry.


(Shut-up --- LOL, nice comeback, followed behind "Word-up Dog"?)