The Unreal Engine 4 is the latest physics engine from Epic, built to lead developers into the next generation of consoles and beyond. The engine is designed to scale from next-gen consoles all the way down to handheld and mobile games. But as it turns out, the Unreal Engine 4 will not be making it to the Nintendo Wii U, according to Epic co-founder Mark Rein.
In an interview with Kotaku, Rein cites the prevalence of Unreal Engine 3 powered games, and the focus on next-gen systems for the Unreal Engine 4 as the reasons that the engine will not be making it onto the Wii U.
"...We have Unreal Engine 3 for the Wii U. Right? And Unreal Engine 3 is powering all kinds of amazing games, still lots of games are being made with Unreal Engine 3. We announced today about a new Unreal Engine 3 license. Unreal Engine 3 doesn't disappear because of Unreal Engine 4. But our goal for Unreal Engine 4 console-wise is next-gen consoles. That's really what our energies are focused on. If you want to make a Wii U game, we have Unreal Engine 3, and it's powering some of the best games on the Wii U already," he said.
This news, coupled with the fact that the Wii U will not be supporting the Frostbite 3 Engine from EA, means that Nintendo will have a serious lack of graphical power when compared to the next-gen consoles that are on the way.
Epic had been uncommitted to bringing the engine onto the Wii U, despite the fact that the hardware is designed to fit a wide variety of different platforms. It is not like the Wii U is not powerful enough to use the technology, as the Unreal Engine 4 can be used on phones and web browser based games. We shall see if Nintendo grows to regret this decision eventually.
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