It may take a while, but sophisticated game developer Epic is committed to bringing the Unreal Engine development kit to Google's Android platform. The company just finished making it available for the iPhone.
Epic vice president Mark Rein recently said of the Unreal Engine, "Android is just not there yet." Like many other frustrated mobile devs out there, Epic blames the fragmentation factor of Android as a major stumbling block. That is, because there are so many Android phones on the market without a strict code of manufacturing regulations, creating anything for the Android Market without alienating a chunk of users is difficult. It's the same problemgame developers run into when trying to port a game from Xbox 360, which has only a few hardware variations, to PCs, which have a nearlyinfinite number of possible internal components.
Nevertheless, Rein did confirm that bringing Android support to Unreal Engine 3 is on the list of things to do, and the company will do all it can to make it happen.
It's because of Unreal Engine that Epic's first iphone game, Infinity Blade, is selling so incredibly well. We've called it the device'smost beautiful game, and one of the most important releases to date for the iPhone. These are the big boys, now, finally stepping into the mobile arena.
Sure, you can have your cutesy little Angry Birds and your dichotomy-inducing Plants vs Zombies, but at some point these games need to grow up. That's what Epic is doing. And it's no shock at all that Android gamers want in on the action.
[Source:Forbes]
Dec 16, 2010
