IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Microsoft Licensed Unreal for Project Natal

Posted June 5, 2009 by James Brightman

One of the biggest announcements at E3 was undoubtedly Microsoft's Project Natal motion-sensing system.  Based on the many conversations IndustryGamers had with publishers and developers during the show, the game industry is quite enthusiastic about the possibilities both Project Natal and PlayStation Motion will create. 

What you may not have known, however, is that Epic's Unreal Engine, which is already powering some of the biggest games in the business, was utilized by Microsoft to create some of the tech demos for the E3 Project Natal demonstration. Speaking to IndustryGamers as part of a larger interview, Epic VP Mark Rein noted with a grin, “I think [these technologies] will create great opportunities for us as an engine. The Paint Party game they showed and the other one [Ricochet] are both Unreal powered. Microsoft licensed Unreal Engine 3 for a whole bunch of games for that thing – you just saw the first two.  We're really excited.” 

“We're going to work with Microsoft and share all that stuff they added into Unreal with our partners; not just Natal, but also things like avatar integration. We were like, 'if you're developing all this stuff, do you mind if we share with all our licensees to give them a big head start?' So Natal we're just over the moon about – it's the new platform and who's the first engine on it?” he said excitedly. 

Although Epic is clearly involved with Natal from the start, Rein also said Sony's PlayStation Motion setup looked “quite cool.” He added, “Again, I think that creates big opportunities. We're the biggest 3D engine on the platform, so hopefully lots of developers will want to make 3D things for that and [work with us].”  

He noted that what impressed him about Paint Party is that you think about painting as a 2D experience, but “they actually managed to incorporate some of the motion sensing – like how it reacts depending on how hard you throw the paint – to make it easier and cooler for kids and families to play.”  Rein continued, “It really used our engine, like some of the particle effects, our 3D rendering, etc. The other game used our engine even more, since it's more into the screen 3D [motion].”

“One thing I really like about Natal is that Microsoft put a lot of research into it. When you see Natal, it's not like EyeToy; it's not just looking for movements of things. The technology actually utilizes bones in the human skeleton. We've seen the simulation where you actually see your body on the screen – they 've got a bunch of tools for fine-tuning games and it's really a lot of research. I mean that shows just how much money Microsoft has. They had these brilliant Microsoft researchers who develop stuff for way off in the future work on this.”

Although Microsoft's Natal turns you into the controller and Sony's PlayStation Motion involves holding a wand or two in your hands, Rein envisions creating games that could be for both platforms. “I think they have slightly different characteristics, but bring it on,” he said enthusiastically. 

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.