Epic’s Rein responds to DVD format issues, user-generated content

Yesterday’s comment from Epic Games VP Mark Rein about the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 managed to bring about some controversy among gaming circles. Rein was earlier quoted as saying that the Xbox 360’s disc size wasn’t big enough to hold all the data meant for UT3. The comment was factual enough, but it happened to get twisted into a critique of Microsoft‘s console rather than an assertion of plain truth.

This prompted Rein to chime in on the company’s official message boards regarding the matter:

The simple facts state that the optical disc on the PS3 holds more data than the optical disc on the 360. If we exceed size of the 360s optical disc then we’ll have to find alternative ways to get the content to 360 users such as making it downloadable. Adding a second DVD to a game like UT3 would be a challenge because when playing online you might not know exactly what map you’re going to be playing next and we have to be able to accommodate users of the core system. So does that mean the disc on the 360 might have a map or two less? Possibly although it is too early to tell for sure.

Rein added that there were “perfectly good strategies to cope with the situation”, such as offering downloadable content across the different platforms. In addition, he also mentioned that a good portion of the extra content would actually come from users who made mods for the video game.

Speaking about mods, Rein also noted that while allowing Unreal Tournament 3 mods on the Xbox 360 wouldn’t become a reality just yet, he was still hopeful that Epic Games and Microsoft could come to some sort of agreement on the matter. As Rein wrote on their message boards,

When it comes to user created mods on the 360 – we will work with Microsoft to find a way to support them. We just don’t have all the answers today and it isn’t our chief priority at this very moment because we already have our hands completely full shipping UT3 on PC and PS3 as well as shipping Gears of War on PC.When we get those out of the way, and get a little time to spend with our friends and families, then we’ll get back on this issue and figure it out.

Yesterday’s comment from Epic Games VP Mark Rein about the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 managed to bring about some controversy among gaming circles. Rein was earlier quoted as saying that the Xbox 360’s disc size wasn’t big enough to hold all the data meant for UT3. The comment was factual enough, but it happened to get twisted into a critique of Microsoft‘s console rather than an assertion of plain truth.

This prompted Rein to chime in on the company’s official message boards regarding the matter:

The simple facts state that the optical disc on the PS3 holds more data than the optical disc on the 360. If we exceed size of the 360s optical disc then we’ll have to find alternative ways to get the content to 360 users such as making it downloadable. Adding a second DVD to a game like UT3 would be a challenge because when playing online you might not know exactly what map you’re going to be playing next and we have to be able to accommodate users of the core system. So does that mean the disc on the 360 might have a map or two less? Possibly although it is too early to tell for sure.

Rein added that there were “perfectly good strategies to cope with the situation”, such as offering downloadable content across the different platforms. In addition, he also mentioned that a good portion of the extra content would actually come from users who made mods for the video game.

Speaking about mods, Rein also noted that while allowing Unreal Tournament 3 mods on the Xbox 360 wouldn’t become a reality just yet, he was still hopeful that Epic Games and Microsoft could come to some sort of agreement on the matter. As Rein wrote on their message boards,

When it comes to user created mods on the 360 – we will work with Microsoft to find a way to support them. We just don’t have all the answers today and it isn’t our chief priority at this very moment because we already have our hands completely full shipping UT3 on PC and PS3 as well as shipping Gears of War on PC.When we get those out of the way, and get a little time to spend with our friends and families, then we’ll get back on this issue and figure it out.