The reason Epic Games hasn’t released anything on Android has nothing to do with Android at all.
Instead, the company blames the individual carriers, saying all of them install too much ‘bloatware’ on their phones, creating an unpredictable amount of RAM. Because of that, Epic founder Tim Sweeney said in a Gizmodo interview, he can’t release a game like Infinity Blade – perhaps the most advanced iPhone game – on Android.
But if the company can release the game on an iPhone over AT&T and Verizon, what’s the difference? According to Sweeney, it’s because Apple is a lot more demanding.
Carriers have to agree to specific requests in order to get the iPhone, while Google lets the carriers do whatever they want.
“Google needs to be a little more evil. They need to be far more controlling,” said Sweeney.
Even so, Epic has released its Unreal Engine development platform for Android, and other third-party publishers are more confident about what the operating system can pull off, even with memory restrictions.
Companies like Gameloft have announced plans to use Unreal Engine in future Android games.
This year is poised to be very big for mobile gaming. In addition to advancements like the one Epic has brought to the table, mobile processor technology is increasing in a big way. Chip maker Qualcomm says by the end of 2011, smartphone games will theoretically have the technology to be as powerful as PS3 or Xbox 360 games.
