Epic has achieved stunning visual feats on the high-end consoles of today, most notably with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament III. But there seems little chance of it going to work on Wii's microchips, as Mark Rein openly admits: "I don't think there's a lot of money in making engines for the Wii."

It's a common notion that relatively few games push the Wii to its graphical limit (Super Mario Galaxy being the clear exception), but Rein has little interest in stepping in to show everyone how it's done.

"What we're doing is the really high-end, next-generation visuals," he said. "We're pushing these machines real hard. I just think that we have too many things on our plate to go back and put resources into that kind of thing."

One of his key reasons seemed to be a doubt of the profitability for third parties on Wii. "I don't think there's a lot of money on making engines for the Wii," he commented.

"I think the big software dollars right now are being earned on Xbox 360, and they're going to be earned on PlayStation 3. And I think, unless you're going to sell your engine to Nintendo, you're going for scraps on that platform," he told GameTrailers.

We have one question, though: when will people stop referring to the very-much current-gen PS3 and Xbox 360 as "next-gen"? Stop it!

I do not care about Epic

There was a thread on this a few days back. At this point, each system has FUD.

Wii: Wii won't get any 3rd party support because Nintendo makes too much money! WIIISDOOOMED!!!!

X360: Guaranteed Red Rings of Death! All shooters! 360ISDOOOMED!!!!

PS3: $600! Bluray is DOOMED! PS3ISDOOOMED!!!!

Actually judging by what he said there isn't money to be made developing game engines for the wii, the wii doesn't call for new brain exploding engines to make games that take advantage of it's visual prowress, sufficient engines already exist.

Epic is not necessarily an unbiased neutral party ...

They are a third party developer who gains a lot from the XBox 360 and PS3 being massively successful, and gains little from the Wii being successful. This is because the Unreal 3 Engine is one of the most popular pieces of middleware and it is not available for the Wii, and there are many decent quality inexpensive or free engines that would be good for Wii development.

It should be noted that he is talking about making engines for the Wii not games. I wouldn't doubt it. Making a game on the Wii doesn't require the kind of resources that a PS360 game does so the benefits of an engine are correspondingly lower. With lower demand and lower prices that means fewer engines will make money. Given that several 3rd party engines are on or coming to the Wii I doubt there is much room for another.

albionus said: It should be noted that he is talking about making engines for the Wii not games. I wouldn't doubt it. Making a game on the Wii doesn't require the kind of resources that a PS360 game does so the benefits of an engine are correspondingly lower. With lower demand and lower prices that means fewer engines will make money. Given that several 3rd party engines are on or coming to the Wii I doubt there is much room for another.

exactly that's what I was saying

Wasn't there supposed to be a Nintendo engine available for license in November? I seem to remember hearing that, but I can't find the article or the thread or anything now. Anyone remember?

Although albinous is correct, Epic is hardly the only important developer of video game engines.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/819/819586p1.html

So far we have seen lazy ass efforts from 3rd parties on wii that are running either on GC or PS2 engines and they r wondering why their games are not selling?!..Ohhh look now you waggle the remote instead of pressing a button bullshit..Perhaps they should be smarter on how to use the wii instead of flooding us with half assed rubbish if they wanna make money..capcom! now thats a smart 3d party!