Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein has confirmed that a Nintendo Wii port of the Unreal Engine 3 is in the works, but that it’s not his company doing the job.
Rein declined to clarify which of the engine licensees is at work on the port, saying only, “I know one of our licensees who’s giving it a shot. It’s their own port, in the same way Ubisoft brought the Unreal Engine 2 to the Wii.” Rein had previously stated that Epic had no intention of developing a Wii version of the engine themselves, although at the 2007 Game Developers Conference he said he expected one of the engine licensees would “squeeze it down into the Wii.”
“We haven’t had a lot of people come to ask us for engines for the Wii,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “I think a lot of people who make games for Wii previously made games for Gamecube, and they’re recycling whatever technologies they’ve used before. It just wouldn’t make sense for us to try and compete in that space. We’re busy enough striving to get better and better in technology and support for the platforms we’re already on to go adding another platform right now.”
The Unreal Engine 3, which has been aggressively marketed by Epic, has been licensed by numerous high-profile developers including Activision, 2K Games, Midway, THQ, Ubisoft, Sony, Electronic Arts and more. Epic has also used the engine to power its own Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 releases.
