Epic Games president Mike Capps, the biggest driving force behind the company's push to license its Unreal Engine to developers, recently questioned the hype surrounding Crytek's competing gaming engine, CryEngine 3. At the same time, Capps believes that Unreal Engine 4, when released, will be the market-leading development engine for upcoming PC games and next-generation console titles.
But although a little mud-slinging is expected between rival companies, what's his big beef against Crytek? In a nutshell, he's surprised anyone takes the studio seriously since the previous engine--CryEngine 2--didn't appear on the consoles as originally planned.
"It’s difficult for us to know what their position is," he said in a recent interview. "They’ve positioned themselves strongly as the 'we're gonna be on console, push one button and it’s great on all three platforms' engine. Warhead was going to come out in 2008 and was going to be their first big console game, and then they just cut console development from CryEngine 2 entirely, and suddenly we had a new engine. So, they’ve yet to ship an Xbox 360 game and we’re five years in. It surprises me that people take them seriously as a cross-platform engine company. We don’t know how to compete against a company that hasn’t shipped yet. It’s all potential, so we’ll see.”
As for the Unreal Engine 4, the outlook for the next generation is somewhat murky compared to the last round, leaving the team rather nervous. Still, Capps seemed rather excited on the PC front. "If you look at what’s happening in the PC market--Larrabee and all that--it’s really taking off, and I think the jump to next generation’s going to be another really big one, which is great for tech guys. Most likely, you’re not going to want to make that massive investment yourself, you’re going to look to come to a company like Epic."
Yep, despite all the console love, Epic still seems to care about the PC gamers. Now is a good time to bring out Unreal 3, no?