Mark Rein was interviewed recently by the Guardian Unlimited's Keith Stuart.  Among the interesting comments from the interview was this one:

"The game is up and running on Xbox 360 - it has been for a long time, and its running wonderfully - it just doesn't have any Xbox Live written into it yet so that's the work that remains."

This basically confirms the rumor that Unreal Tournament 3 was indeed up and running on the 360 a long time ago.  It really seems like a missed opportunity for them to hold off on releasing the game on the 360 simply because of the user created content issue on Live.  So who do you think will eventually give in on the issue, Epic or Microsoft?

Epic will give up. Just like they gave up when they wanted to give away content for Gears of War.  Nice guys finish last, again.

we all know it runs good on the 360. problem is the modding.

What's the story on this exactly? PS3 version supports user-made mods for no extra charge, and Epic wanted the 360 version to do so as well, but Microsoft is worried their customers will get used to receiving stuff for free?

I wonder how the game will do on the PS3 when it is released here in the UK (EU)...

I know that i will be buying it anyway :D

 No the problem is the structure of xbox live, microsoft holds the keys but doesn't want to change how XBL is set up.

 Didn't they already do that for FFXI?

Not quite the full story... MS published the game and therefore gets to decide pricing for DLC. It's not Epic's decision at all. If Epic had published the game, it would be a different story. There is plenty of free content handed out on XBL if the publisher wants it that way.

I still don't understand what is supposed to be so cool about modding. Modding a game belongs to a computer, a PC game, not consoles. They should just make the 360 version with Xbox Live support, 16 players or something, and then release it, or else they won't sell that much if it takes to long.