Wii Market Not 'Worthwhile' for Epic Games

With more than 50 million units sold around the globe, the Wii has an installed base significantly larger than any other platform this generation. It's pretty hard to ignore that market, and most companies have been scrambling to figure out just how to get a piece of the Wii action. Not Epic Games, though. 

If your engine powered a zillion games this generation, you'd be smiling too...

In speaking with IndustryGamers recently, we asked Epic VP Mark Rein if his company would make an effort to modify its popular Unreal Engine technology to fit the Wii or even handhelds at some point. Rein just doesn't believe the market is there on Wii, and he doesn't want to waste Epic's resources in custom designing an engine for the platform. 

“If you stretch something too thin, it becomes very thin. How do you support that? We don't make games for that platform because we don't see a market for the kinds of games we make – let's be honest,” he said.

We noted that more third parties are trying to push hardcore games on the Wii, but Rein countered, “And they've been huge financial flops... It's just not where the market is. Look at EA. Do you see the same Madden game on Wii? Of course not – it's a dumbed down game.”  

We further pressed him that even if it's a different market for Wii that there would be some way for Epic to apply its Unreal technology to the platform to benefit Epic's business and aid publishers with their portfolios on Wii. He answered yet again, “You'd just be stretching it too thin; I just don't see it as worthwhile.” 

He added, “But you know if Nintendo comes out with a Wii 2 or a Wii HD, and it's got a couple more processors and a little more memory and better graphics, then yes we'll be on it. I'm not saying there's no interest in being on as many platforms as possible, but it's just that you have to be on the ones you're good at.  We're a very high-end engine, and we have the best tools and awesome visuals and great physics. It's more likely the platform will rise up to meet us than we'll go down [to customize our technology for it]. And eventually I think that'll be the case, and it'll be true of handhelds and even the iPhone. 

“That's how we got to where we are now to be honest. We were a PC developer and we developed on the high-end and then Xbox and PlayStation kind of picked up on the low-end into our wheelhouse a little bit. So we did some games for those platforms, and then for PS3 and Xbox 360 were right around what we were designing for, so they're good fits. And you have to stick to what you do well.”