Epic co-founder Mark Rein has confirmed that the upcoming Unreal Engine 4 will not run on Nintendo’s Wii U, PS3 or Xbox 360.
“We have Unreal Engine 3 for the Wii U. Right? And Unreal Engine 3 is powering all kinds of amazing games, still lots of games are being made with Unreal Engine 3,” Rein explained during a recent keynote address at GDC 2013.
“Unreal Engine 3 doesn’t disappear because of Unreal Engine 4. But our goal for Unreal Engine 4 console-wise is next-gen consoles. That’s really what our energies are focused on. If you want to make a Wii U game, we have Unreal Engine 3, and it’s powering some of the best games on the Wii U already.”
Rein also clarified that Unreal 4 won’t be supported on any of the current-gen consoles, as it is specifically targeted at high-end systems.
“Unreal Engine 4 – we’re not PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or Wii U. It’s next-gen technology. That’s what we’re aiming for,” he told IGN.
“The truth is, if a developer wanted to take an Unreal Engine game and put it on Wii U, they could, Unreal Engine 3 is kicking ass on Wii U. The best games on Wii U are made on our technology. What more do you want from us?”
As TG Daily previously reported, Epic showcased its Unreal Engine 4 last week at GDC 2013 in San Francisco.
According to Polygon and The Verge, the closed-door demo of Infiltrator is an impressive step forward, with hardware specs reportedly weighing in at fairly reasonable, rather than completely outrageous.
Indeed, Epic VP Mark Rein confirmed the demo was running in real time on a “single off-the-shelf Nvidia GTX 680.”
Also demoed was Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 development environment, which prioritizes
quick asset and environment creation in a code-light editor – allowing artists to work without direct input from coders for general tasks, thereby freeing up engineers and software developers for more specialized work.
Unreal Engine has been in development for years, and it seems like the next-gen software is almost ready to power games on Sony’s Playstation 4, Microsoft’s Xbox 720 (Next) and Windows PCs.
