Epic Games in Talks with Nintendo

By Shawn White / Sunday, 21 May 2006

In an interview with Joystiq, Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski, Lead Designer of the Xbox 360 title Gears of War, commented on Nintendo's next-generation console, Wii, and how his studio is in talks with the Kyoto-based publisher. Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein has made various comments about Nintendo's new home console before, expressing his concern that many third-parties might treat the Wii controller as a gimmick, as well as his studio's interest in developing for the machine should the Wii hardware contain sufficient processing power to handle Epic Games' middleware engines. When asked for an update regarding Epic Games' stance towards developing for Wii, Bleszinski responded, "We're currently talking with Nintendo. It's not really my department to pontificate on other people's system and comments that the wonderful Mark Rein will make occasionally to upset the fans. Again, I reserve judgment of the Wii until I get hands on with it. I was very judgmental about the DS until I actually got to play hands-on with it and I love Trauma Center and stuff like that." "You know what, Nintendo is zigging while everyone else is zagging and they'll be just for it. I give them props for doing something different," Bleszinski continued. "My advice to anybody developing a first-person shooter for the [Wii] is: even though you have a new way to control and make a new FPS you still need a cool, compelling FPS underneath that. [Control] is only one of five things that you need. Give us a Half-Life 2 with those controls and I'll be first in line to buy it." Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2007, exclusive to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, respectively, are the titles Epic Games is currently developing. In addition, a number of studios are utilizing the Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 for their next-generation projects. The full interview with Cliff Bleszinski can be found here. Stay with The Wiire for more news from Epic Games and their plans for Wii.