Epic Interested in Wii U

Famed gamed developer Epic Games, the company behind Unreal and Gears of War, has expressed interest in Nintendo’s new HD console. Since the console is on graphical par with the XBOX 360 and PS3, the developer is looking to possibly release future projects on the platform. Epic Games President Mike Capps expressed his history with the Nintendo Wii:

“We haven’t made an official announcement about that platform. And while we loved the Wii, it just wasn’t a fit to make a game that would go across Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. It just wasn’t possible. So going forward, we’re working with those folks and we’re very interested in the Wii U,” Capps said.

He went on to talk about the process of how Epic Games develops for platforms:

“We find that the best way to support a platform is to be making a game for it and we don’t currently have a game in development for that platform. For example, we don’t officially support Android, although we have demos that work on Android… But we officially support iPhone because we’ve made a game and we know it works. We know how to get through the certification process – we know it could. That’s sort of important to me; as a game developer who’s selling an engine, I want to make sure that I can ship a game on it myself, which is why we have very clear public support of PS3, Xbox 360, PC and iPhone but not as clear when it comes to Android or Wii U,” he said.

An interesting precursor to future development for the Wii U is the fact that Epic’s own Unreal Engine was used to develop many of the games that have been announced for Nintendo’s system.

“At the launch event at E3, some of the products that you saw running on Wii U were based on Unreal Engine technology. So that kind of gives you an idea of where we are in that space. You can certainly use our engine on that platform – it’s a natural fit from a technology perspective,” Capps said. “It opens up some doors that weren’t open before on current generation consoles because it is going to be a powerful box. I’m sure [Epic VP] Mark Rein would love anyone who’s interested to know how official our support is to get in touch with him!”

via IndustryGamers