A post was set up last week over at Guardian Unlimited where readers would be able to present questions to Epic’s co-founder Mark Rein. These questions were to be asked in a formal interview for the site, but a few hours before the interview took place, Mark Rein graciously went ahead and posted answers to some of the questions himself, with topics ranging from user generated content on consoles all the way to the memory limitations found on DVD versus Blu-ray discs.
Rein was inquired on his thoughts of user-generated content on consoles and if UT3 is just the beginning of something much bigger. “I think it is fantastic,” replied Rein. “We’re just barely scratching the surface of where this can go. We’ve had a great history of user-created content with the Unreal Tournament franchise and the chance to bring that to PS3 is just amazing.”
When is comes to creating mods for these games however, Rein feels it is best to keep the tools on PC’s as users will want the power, storage, and memory, of a high-end PC while creating content.
Rein also lets us know that currently there is no support for Sony’s upcoming Home service within Unreal Tournament 3, and would require an update if they ever did decide to support it. On the bright side, Rein acknowledges that UT3 is already capable of supporting Sony’s DualShock 3, which he says should go on sale pretty soon in both North America and Europe.
When asked about his feelings on DVD versus Blu-ray and whether or not the limited capacity of DVD will stifle creativity and innovation, Rein feels they can always use more space but there are always ways around storage limitations. One example Rein sites is through releasing downloadable content.
“For example, I expect that few would argue Gears of War is “stifled” by disc size yet if you combine the size of the game with the amount of FREE downloadable content and updates we’ve released it would not fit on a single DVD. So problem solved there.”
While on the subject of Gear of War, when asked if the sequel would be released in 2008, Rein cutely replied with, “Gears 2? What’s that?”
