Epic remains determined to bring mods to Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360, boss Mark Rein telling OXM UK "We'll figure it out."
"We know some of these great mods are going to play a role on Xbox 360, even if we have to get some people and bring them over ourselves," Rein added.
He said similar to CVG on this subject last year, but at the time described this method of mod delivery as a "worst case scenario" and still held out hope that a user-managed way of bringing UTIII mods to the console - as it operates on PS3 - would be possible.
In fact, according to OXM Epic continues to hold out hope, Rein saying that the developer's "cautiously optimistic" that a solution to getting round Microsoft's reluctance to share user-generated content is coming.
But expect this to occur in the future rather than it being an out-the-box feature of Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360.
After all of their talk of encouraging indie development at the GDC '08, I'm disappointed Microsoft aren't more responsive to user-generated content. The mod scene gives amateur developers another avenue explore creative ideas on a tight budget, so surely cutting this option off is counter-intuitive.
With Little Big Planet and Home getting people excited about customising their own worlds over on PS3, I think its about time Microsoft gave XBox users more than just a Gamertag and picture for their live accounts.
I think MS will loose ground if they don't allow user generated material in games. They want to be number 1 in the console market, but the PS3 already has user generated stuff.
Probably they will turn around and say you need to have an XNA sub to do it, but that's another £60.
I can understand why MS are reluctant to allow mods, as particularly malicious coders could interfere with various parts of the 360's hardware with a rather sneaky mod. Given the hardware failure rate, the last thing MS want is bad publicity from dodgy UT3 mods bricking systems.
But I don't understand why they can't implement some kind of in-house testing on Epic's end, at least. Or is that what Mark Rein was talking about here? If they could test mods, then release them to XBL Marketplace or an in-game download area, that would surely eliminate the risks that MS are so concerned about?
I think MS will loose ground if they don't allow user generated material in games. They want to be number 1 in the console market, but the PS3 already has user generated stuff.
Probably they will turn around and say you need to have an XNA sub to do it, but that's another £60.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. They want people using XNA because its something they have full control over (and get some money out of) but I suppose mods from third party games would be more difficult to manage/profit from.
Let's not forget we're talking about Microsoft here. They'll only ever do something if its in their interests. If those things happen to be cool for the consumer then its down to good fortune more than altruism on their part.
as much as i dont want to, I have to agree. with the recent attention MS have been giving to their XNA, you can see that they'd rather not allow budding developers make games for free with all the effort theyve put into making them pay for it.
its not really a bad thing on microsofts part, its just business. however with the timing that this has come, its no doubt gonna annoy people.
Although I had UT2004, all I ever downloaded for it were characters and maps. If microsoft just allow those to be cooked for the 360 I'm sure people will be happy. most game mods fall apart after beta and even then, they dont really gain as much attention as the original game.
Can't they come up with a method similar to EA's for uploading photos of your face into Tiger woods 08? I guess the servers would need to be run by Epic though which is probably an expense they don't want.
Although I had UT2004, all I ever downloaded for it were characters and maps. If microsoft just allow those to be cooked for the 360 I'm sure people will be happy.
Probably a ton of legal issues with that alone. Through my UT and Quake history my favourite characters (or at least the ones I remember!) were recreations of other franchises; Starscream, Bender, Homer, Megaman (I think) and so on. MS are probably concerned about the IP problems related to it.
However, I'm sure there would be a way around that (a basic review process at Epics end could probably do that)
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