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yinkadare on 20 February 2010
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jacks81x said:
mrstickball said:
Chairman-Mao said:
Epic games is another company (also Valve) that I think is a tad bit over-rated but if MS purchases Epic that would be a huge hit to Sony's 3rd party and a boost to MS' 1st party.

Honestly, I think its the other way around. Epic is one of the most under-rated. Not because of their games, which are good but not great in terms of frequency. However, their Unreal Engine is what makes Epic a must-have for Microsoft.

Imagine a world where Microsoft gives out Unreal Engine as part of a SDK for free to developers. Could you imagine MS aquiring new developers by giving it in turn for exclusivity or a greater cut of royalties? MS would do insane business by that, and could screw Sony over in the process.

I actually think MS will lose developers.  The reason why the Unreal Engine is so popular (other than that it's a great engine), is because Epic puts no restrictions on the developers in how they use the engine and because they only ask for 25% royalty in return, which is ridiculously generous to the devs.  Can you imagine MS asking for anything less than 75% in return?  MS has never been known for their willingness to share their proprietary tools to begin with.  And if they're going to share it, you'll know they'll charge an arm and a leg and they'll probably prohibit the devs from making multi-plat games.  A lot of the major devs will just say no thanks to that.  They'll rather look elsewhere or develop their own in-house engine if MS is going to force them to only make games for them and up the royalty cost on top of that.  

I can see it now.

MS: We own the Unreal Engine now.  If you want to use it, get in line and show us the $$$.  And BTW, any game you make has to be exclusive to the XBox.  Otherwise GTFO.