We all know that PC gamers are getting Unreal Tournament 3 this very month, but the release date for the Playstation 3 version remains tentative. Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games, told Eurogamer that the chances of getting the PS3 version this year is still pretty good.

“Right now we’re very close to a release candidate, and we should have it finished by the end of this week. Then we send it off and it’s just a matter of what happens from there.”

While Rein never said it explicitly, I think it’s very doable. Why? This Eurogamer quote was given roughly around November 8, Thursday, at an event in Birmingham. The end of that week would be the 10^th or 11^th. Production would take from two to three weeks (around the end of November), and delivery would probably be another two weeks (this would roughly fall in the first week of December).

There’s a catch.

UT3 won’t make it to Europe until 2008 because according to Rein, the region’s certification process takes longer. They’ll still be testing the game in different languages, so that will eat up some more time.

Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 for the PS3 might launch this year, but Europe gets no love

You see, Mark Rein announced that the PS3 version of UT3 will support the keyboard and mouse scheme.

“I checked with Steve Polge and he said that YES we are supporting keyboard and mouse in Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3. He is confident we are doing it in a way that will be balanced without feeling “gimped” for either side. We’ll also allow people to choose whether or not they want to allow mixed controller vs. keyboard/mouse games or not.”

Good one, Mark. In retrospect, your news of UT3 not having cross-platform play between the PC and PS3 is almost making me feel bad because this new keyboard/mouse scheme for the PS3 levels the playing field between the two platforms.

Then again, aging video cards resulting in choppy visuals would give PC jockeys a scapegoat if they ever lose to a PS3 gamer. I mean, have you seen how purdy UT3 is? It’s almost as scary as Crysis.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the image.

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Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 for PS3 will have keyboard support

Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games, announced at the developer’s forums that Unreal Tournament 3 doesn’t use Games For Windows Live.

“We have not decided about cross platform play between PC and PS3. We’re not 100% sure that users want that feature but if we get time we’ll play around with it and see how it works. In the mean time we plan to be able to serve the PS3 from PC servers so that should help us gets lots of great servers going.”

The PS3 users won’t stand a chance, unless they sell out and use auto-aim.

Post from: EveryJoe

Epic: UT3 won’t use Games For Windows Live

Great news to all you Mac twitch gamers! Two marquee shooters are being developed for your platform of choice. First is Unreal Tournament 3, which as you know is coming out for the PC this coming November. According to Macworld, this news shouldn’t surprise Mac fans because it has been mentioned in Epic Games’ forums, and has been said to be suitable for the Mac.

The other shooter might come as a surprise though. Epic VP Mark Rein told GameTrailers that Gears of War is also coming to the platform.

Notice anything interesting about the two shooters?

They’re both using the Unreal Engine 3, and apparently, porting games that use this core software component to the Mac won’t be that big of a problem.

Still, one can’t help but wonder if bringing these shooters to the Mac would be worth the effort, particularly because of the platform’s small user base. Sure, the PC market may be smaller than the sheer bulk of people owning consoles, but it’s relatively bigger than the Mac market.

A BusinessWeek commentary on Mac gaming revealed that a “successful” title might sell 50,000 units. How many units do you suppose would these two shooters sell?

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Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 and Gears of War to attack the Mac