80°

Mark Rein answers your questions

The co-founder of Epic has visited Guardian Unlimited's blog and answered every single one of the questions put to him by readers...

Among other things, the following topics were covered:
- Future of user-generated content on consoles.
- Release date for 360 version of UT3.
- UnrealEd that runs on a console.
- Whether Gears 2 is coming this year or not.
- Cross platform play between the PC, PS3 and 360.
- Home integration in the PS3 version of UT3.
- PS3 and PC sales of UT3.
- User-generated content on the Xbox 360.
- Gears of War PC issues.
- Assault mode for UT3.
- Crysis, and the supplied modding tools.
- Whether extra content for the PC version of Gears of War be made available on the 360 or not.

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blogs.guardian.co.uk
decapitator6359d ago

With this interview, I can most certainly confirm that, there wont be any 360 version of UT3. The next announcement that we hear will be for EU launch. And by this, One can most certainly hope that, Gears 2 will be unveiled ad GDC.

Great interview by the way and thanks for posting.

Maddens Raiders6359d ago

but the overarching theme of this entire Q&A session left only one idea in my mind regarding Rein's and Epic's thoughts in general (right now):

Sony's PS3 > Microsoft's XBox360

-seriously, read it.

Sez 6359d ago (Edited 6359d ago )

i like how he dodged the question." How are sales on PS3 holding up?
by answering we are pleased with the sales. my question is how many sold on ps3. since no game made the top ten in NA.

@below.
like he's really going to say." with the recent sale of the ps3 version of UT3. we are very disappointed in the turn out of low sales of the pc/ps3 version".

Maddens Raiders6359d ago

"Mark Rein: "We're very pleased with the early sales on PS3."

((((vega75's fanboy paraphrasing: "i like how he dodged the question." How are sales on PS3 holding up?
by answering we are pleased with the sales))))

He,[MR] did not just say that they are pleased, but that they are *very pleased. That's a dodge huh? Please try again.

mikeslemonade6359d ago

No, you have to give the 360 the benefit of the doubt here because Mark Reign in interviews is very tight with his product and right now his priority is selling more copies of UT3 on PS3 and then UT3 on PC. The game is coming to 360. UT3 is an okay game at best without the mods so it would be Microsoft's best benefit to change their guidelines.

Doctor Strange6359d ago

Not a bad interview but I hope they can sort out the mod aspects with Microsoft. The mods so far has been the best part about UT3 and if they can make easier to find and install game like they said in the interview that would great.

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240°

Gears of War 2 Remake was in development “10 years ago” but was scrapped by Xbox

Ayi Sanchez: "Old work. I did this 10 years ago now as part of a material test for a remaster of Gears of War 2 that never happened."

RaidenBlack97d ago

lolz,
hope we're still getting Gears 2 & 3 for PC, as per rumors

Cacabunga97d ago

Xbox always taking the right decisions

XiNatsuDragnel97d ago

Wow... just wow Microsoft sigh at it again 😑

Lightning7797d ago

Weird, in mean they had no studios to make anything really new so there's a part of me thats kinda glad they scrapped it. If they released this back then it would of gotten ridiculed for remakes and remastering stuff. Now they have new and interesting games so the collection is harmless.

CrimsonWing6997d ago

Geez, Xbox, something like that I would’ve bought Day 1. Great business decisions over there.

lucasnooker97d ago

10 years ago it wasn’t such a big deal. The games were only a few years old by that point

CrimsonWing6997d ago

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition came out in 2015 (essentially 10 years ago), having a follow-up to that on the then next-gen console would’ve absolutely been welcomed, in my book.

LoveSpuds97d ago

I can only assume the the Gears of War Remaster flopped so they decided to scrap the other remakes?

Seems short sighted to me as I really enjoyed the 1st remaster. Regardless, I'll snap up some remakes to play on my PS5.

Show all comments (11)
260°

Gears Of War Creator Urges Devs To Make Single-Player Games Amid EA's Live Service Focus

Gears of War's creator has spoken out against the trend of turning established franchises into live services, urging developers to focus on single-player experiences.

Relientk77130d ago

I agree with Cliff for once.

Single player games > GaaS

JEECE129d ago

Too bad he didn't have this opinion when he chased trends with Lawbreakers. Or when he chased trends with Radical Heights.

Popsicle129d ago (Edited 129d ago )

He learned from the mistake or he wouldn’t be advocating for more single player experiences. I find this refreshing in a world where we often see people so stubborn that they tend to double down on a mistake which results in making things even worse. Seriously, good for him!

JEECE129d ago

@Popsicle

Oh for sure, better late than never. And better to somewhat own up to your mistakes, rather than just blaming your release window, or advertising partners, or gamers lol.

anast129d ago

@Popsicle

Of course we will never know his intentions, but it's hard to believe he is just a naive agent that is learning from his mistakes.

-Foxtrot130d ago

He could have done one himself after Gears of War but he did Lawbreakers…look how that turned out.

RaidenBlack130d ago

Not converting Jawbreakers into F2P was the final nail in the CliffyB coffin.

Knushwood Butt129d ago

Jawbreakers would have been a better name! Heck, I might just go and trademark that right now.

BISHOP-BRASIL129d ago

@Knushwood

Aren't those a kind of candy already?

coolbeans130d ago

You're missing the point. His studio's short lifespan is what *inspired* him to make this comment in the first place.

-Foxtrot130d ago

Oh I know the point...I'm just stating the obvious and how stupid he was in the beginning to jump on a trend he had no real experience in. A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War.

He'd have been better creating something like Gears of War again, a great single player story and a good online mode.

coolbeans129d ago

-"A first person hero shooter with heavy GaaS elements is a lot different than the multiplayer in Gears of War."

I mean... you're kinda muddying terms when Gears has always had a strong multiplayer component. Even if I grant you that, Cliffy B started cementing himself at Epic with Unreal Tournament, which was among the earliest shooter series to have "proto-GaaS elements" (downloadable maps, cosmetics, special editions that bundle stuff together). Lawbreakers and Radical Heights (were it finished) weren't major career shifts to him like they would be for, say, Fumito Ueda.

Regardless of that, it's still kinda useless to state the obvious when CliffyB himself made his comments with the benefit of hindsight already.

129d ago
CrimsonWing69129d ago (Edited 129d ago )

Look, these a-hole publishers can do this, in fact I want them to, so they can f*ck around and find out and fail hard scaring away everyone else from doing this live service push.

This industry is run by some of the dumbest corporate pieces of sh*t I’ve ever seen. They spend stupid amount of money with literally nothing that stands out from games from the previous generation (look at Arkham Knight to the $200 mill Suicide Squad comparison vids), you’re overpaying devs, and you focus on games as a service to milk consumers that a lot of them grew up off traditional games. We’re not idiots, we sniff this sh*t out and won’t touch it.

So, what’s your answer to not getting a ROI? Raise game prices and double down on GaaS so you can suck your consumers dry. That model only works for some games and even then how in hell do you expect it to work with multiple games!? They’re ruining the damn hobby with this corporate greed.

Cut back on dev budgets, cut back on how much your staff is getting paid, until sales for games bring in a profit. That’s the answer and make some games that feel like there’s passion behind them, not some cookie cut up game that feels like the entire existence behind it is to offer as little as it can with repetitive bullsh*t and selling off all this content throughout its life. It’s gross.

anast129d ago

I agree with every point here.

Redemption-64129d ago

Games do bring in a profit, it's the greed that is killing the industry. Here is a fact, live service games overall make more, significantly more money than single player games

What you should be asking is executives not wanting continuous growth or firing them. Saying devs should be fired when those who are fitting the bills and setting unrealistic expectations would make things worse. What do y9u think would happen if they released say, 30 single player games and over half of them fail? You are going after the wrong crowd.

DankSinatra129d ago

About time he learned. I guess he finally stopped blaming everyone else and took accountability for his mistakes and realized that people really don't care that much for trends or live service.

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850°

Report: Gears of War Trilogy Collection Will Be Multiplatform and Available on PS5 Day One

A new rumor suggests that the Gears of War Trilogy Collection is real, with it launching on the PS5 day one with Xbox and PC.

LG_Fox_Brazil135d ago

Yeah, I can totally see that happening. My only doubt is if they are going to announce that at the same time as the Hallo Collection or if they will try to distance both announcements to try to ease the pain

helicoptergirl135d ago

This same insider was correct about Forza Horizon 5. So this might be true. But I heard rumors are the Halo:MCC is the next big one to be announced. We'll see I guess

DefenderOfDoom2135d ago

I am hoping Halo:MCC comes to PlayStation .

Cacabunga135d ago

Someone check on Obscure Observer please

piroh135d ago

They should announce dedicated showcase for all Playstation ports, it would be less painful for their fanbase.

Anyway thank you Team Xbox and Phil i will support the games.

Profchaos135d ago

Phil should wear a crash t shirt to that

Profchaos135d ago

I see them being in the same year but halo coming alongside ns2 and if e day is early next year gears collection could come at Christmas time

The_Blue135d ago

Ease the pain? You do know these people won't even entertain us irl, ironic 😭

1Victor135d ago

NOOOOOOOOOOOO screamed an obscured observer from across the room the street.
Well I’ll check it out DAY 1 🤣 I hope the do a good job porting it and don’t have issues like MCC did when it first launched on s/x🤷🏿

Mr_cheese135d ago (Edited 135d ago )

This will be cool

TheEroica134d ago (Edited 134d ago )

Ease the pain? Pain for who? Lol. More games on more platforms is a gamer friendly approach. Locking games behind hardware is archaic and lame... Let's not turn into corporate stooges.

TheEroica134d ago

4 corporate suits voted me down. Shame. Pro gamer all the way.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 134d ago
Lightning77135d ago

I remember talking about this with someone on the forums and they made some good points. Like what exactly are these old games doing at the moment? They pushed the hardware and did everything they needed to do for that platform at the time. Now in MS case even their new games are gonna be day and date but if we're taking about old games. Those games are just sitting their not doing anything anymore. When you port the old stuff to another console, that game has life again and move few more units and a new audience.

As I said Xbox is different because their stuff is inching closer and closer to be day and date. Though both Xbox and PS have old games that are just sitting around when they could have new audiences and breathe new life into the older exclusives.

Terry_B135d ago

Just imagine how well collections of older Nintendo games would sell on pc, xbox and playstation...

NotoriousWhiz135d ago

I honestly don't expect Nintendo to gain much from releasing their games on 3rd party consoles. People are conditioned to buy Nintendo games on Nintendo hardware. Once that changes, Nintendo will probably lose out on revenue as people pass on their underpowered console to wait for their game to release on a superior console. Tons of people only have a Switch for exclusives, and those exclusives sell better than most games on the other platforms and Nintendo is able to pocket the bulk of that revenue since it is their game on their console.

Profchaos134d ago

Not very considering rom packs have been eaily accessible for years now it's only really GameCube and above you need to pick and choose because the game size is fairly large and the Wii IMO didn't emulate well considering the motion controls.

So as incredible as they are I doubt they would sell unless they are overhauling them somehow but then again I wouldn't want to see them overhauled but that's just me I still play the NES version of Mario 3 over the SNES all stars version as a example because I think it looks better.

134d ago
Sonic1881135d ago

All you had to say was Microsoft is a third party publisher now

Lightning77135d ago

Huh? They clearly are what are you trying to get at?

rlow1135d ago

That still makes and releases a console…..which knocks them out of the third party club…..nice try

Sonic1881134d ago

@rlow1

A third-party publisher that still releases a console? Sure, whatever makes you sleep at night. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're trying to do.

generic-user-name134d ago

The Series X/S backwards compatibility to their old classics was one of the last few selling points for those consoles.

RaidenBlack135d ago

Finally Gears 2 & 3 coming to PC !

neutralgamer1992135d ago (Edited 135d ago )

Exactly I also hope we get a fable collection since fable 2 never came to Pc

I hope we also get gears of war 4 on Pc too since only gears 5 is on steam along with tactics

ninjabutt13135d ago

Gears 4 is already on pc, maybe not in steam but its in xbox app

134d ago
isarai135d ago

Where's the goalposts gonna go now? 😀🫳🍿

helicoptergirl135d ago

Get an obscure person to bend over and then I'll show you :)

Chevalier135d ago

They're too busy crying in a corner and being served crow again though. Pretty sure everything is going to voicemail.

goken134d ago

@helicoptergirl
Normally with articles like this the person you mentioned is usually obscured from observation 🤣

Profchaos135d ago

Revenue same as always Microsoft don't care about community it's reputation and they've never been worried about losing loyal customers if you recall the Kinect era they abandoned the hardcore entirely to pursue the hardcore gamers grandma

Outside_ofthe_Box135d ago

"Where's the goalposts gonna go now?"

"It's just old games sitting around doing nothing! Might as well get money from it and a new audience you can use to potentially make it exclusive again for next gen for them to be enticed to jump ship!"

~New goalpost

135d ago
Outside_ofthe_Box135d ago (Edited 135d ago )

"Eventually Sony will likely be forced to do the same"

Is that you begging for games that you once bashed in the past? Too funny, things must be dry in your land.

Chevalier135d ago

"aren’t selling as much as Xbox - and the answer will be that they are on less platforms."

No they won't because Xbox doesn't announce sales numbers at all. So how would they compare these sales? What idiotic logic. These shareholders going to pull numbers out their backside?!

thorstein135d ago

Why doesn't he just use the one account. How many N4G tabs does he have open with different accounts?

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 135d ago
neutralgamer1992135d ago

Why do you need goalposts? More gamers will get to play games. Phil said it few days ago again no game has any red line around it. Seriously man it's gaming and your choice of plastic box makes no difference

It's 2025 enjoy gaming on any platform. We should be celebrating how the Biggest gaming publisher is allowing their games to be played on all platforms but how can we get that when some people feel the need to take victory laps

135d ago
Chevalier135d ago

Well hate to say we told you so. But we called this happening as soon as we saw these big purchases and falling sales, but, a whole slew of people said this would NEVER happen. Goalpost keep moving too as if it's some weird flex.

thorstein135d ago (Edited 135d ago )

TBH, Forza, the Indiana Jones game, the next Elder Scrolls, and I hope Fable will make it over. I'm excited about those.

I don't think MS going the Sega route would be a bad thing. Nintendo and Sony are making good hardware. There's no reason to not make profit off of that.

But the goalposts moving is in reference to people who constantly approve and post disingenuous stories that they scream are true.

For instance, "you can build a comparable PC to a PS pro for $700," conveniently leaving off the OS. Or, "Sony delisted HD2 in 170 countries" when in reality, it was 170 regions of which SteamDB lists as having over 3000 regions.

neutralgamer1992134d ago

Chevalier

What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box

Chevalier133d ago

"What is this with we. Yes most of us saw this coming and all I am saying is it's a great thing for gamers on all platforms. We should be celebrating the fact amazing games will be available to all of us instead of taking some victory lap because of a plastic box"

Cool and it should be celebrated. But this idiotic narrative is that it was done for us as consumers needs to die.

Lots of idiots trying to reframe this when they literally argued that this would NEVER happen when we said yes it will because Gamepass isn't profitable and sales losses all round and add in lower hardware sales and it was obvious

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 133d ago
1Victor135d ago

@isarai: “ Where's the goalposts gonna go now? 😀🫳🍿”
.
The goal post is going home crawl into the shower open the flow and start crying while rocking back and forward i obscured by the darkness of the room.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 133d ago
helicoptergirl135d ago

I haven't played any oif these games either. Will buy and go through the campgains for sure. They a co-op correct? Hope so

Yui_Suzumiya134d ago

They're amazing. If you ever played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine then you already have an idea how they play.

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