The hardcore PC gaming audience is dwindling, says Epic's Mark Rein, because consoles are slowly but surely stealing players away.
"Consoles are definitely stealing a lot of hardcore gamers from the PC," Rein told The Guardian, adding, "[T]he sales of the console versions are something like ten times the sales of the PC versions."
Which makes us wonder why we're still waiting for a 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3. "The game is up and running on Xbox 360 - it has been for a long time, and its running wonderfully - it just doesn't have any Xbox Live written into it yet so that's the work that remains," explained Rein.
Microsoft also is apparently still resistant to the idea of user-created content, but Rein doesn't blame them. As it stands right now, Live is a closed system whose content is checked and re-checked for quality, something that wouldn't be possible with something like UT3's mods, he said.
"User generated content - well, it can be dangerous, you could theoretically download a mod that uses too much memory and crashes your machine," said Rein.
Though he's still hopeful that Microsoft will change their mind, Rein says 360 owners won't suffer too much if they don't. Rein figures that Epic will take some of the best mods and get them added to the Marketplace.
"I don't think 360 users are going to suffer drastically - they're just going to miss out on a lot of crazy, cool fun stuff and the ability to exchange it among themselves," he said.
The Mark Rein Interview [The Guardian]
