Sony to license Unreal Engine for Playstation 3 development

Sony to license Unreal Engine for Playstation 3 development

Sony is quite serious about enhancing the capabilities of their Playstation 3 gaming console. The company has now decided to license the engine of the Unreal 3 game from Epic Games to make it the weapon of choice for the PS3 developers. The gaming company had earlier wowed the audiences at E3 in May with their PlayStation 3 tech demo that featured elements of Unreal Tournament 2007.

Sony has now announced a strategic licensing agreement with Epic Games. This deal gives Sony, sublicensing rights of Unreal Engine 3, which gives them access to a complete games development framework developed by Epic Games. It includes programmable shaders tool, physics engine, and GUI [Graphic User Interface] based physics attribution tool along with software to develop scenario development, movie scene development, and animation and particle animation tools.

This also means that the “evaluation version” of the Unreal 3 engine would be shipped with the PlayStation 3 software developer kits (SDKs). This might also lead to the possible Unreal Tournament 2007 version being ported for this upcoming next generation gaming console from the Sony’s stables Playstation 3. Apart of this news, the company also announced that they have acquired the Bristol, UK-based SN Systems who offers a variety of development products.