Keith Stuart of Guardian Unlimited writes: "Tomorrow evening I'll be interviewing Mark Rein, the outspoken vice president of Epic Games. High on the agenda - the PS3 iteration of Unreal Tournament 3 and the future of Unreal Engine 3. But what would YOU like to ask him? Add your question as a comment and I'll put it to him."
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Ripten:

"In an odd turn of events for non-PS3 games making their way to the console, the Halo map "Wizard" is now playable in Unreal Tournament 3. Should this awaken Microsoft lawyers? We hope not."
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iD Tech Camps, an American summer computer camp is to use Unreal Tournament III and its mod tools to teach game design
The software will be used to help students get a grounding in game design and development principles.
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Epic's Mark Rein has re-confirmed that he erm, cannot confirm a solid release date for Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360.

"We don't have a specific release date yet," the Epic VP told CVG, in response to magazine reports to the contrary. "Right now we're finishing up the European PS3 version."

It was released on the PlayStation 3 last month in North America but there's still no European date and no word on how much lead Sony will have over the Xbox 360 version.
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Maxconsole writes:

"According to the following German magazine image, Unreal Tournament on the Xbox 360 is around 90% complete and due out sometime approximately around April next year."
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GamerNode writes:

"Seems that in the month of November, only 39,995 units of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC were sold in the US. The expected number of units to be shifted was 70,000 so to only move half that number is not a good sign.
Crysis on the other hand, which was expected to move just over 68,000 units, ended up with over 86,000 units being shifted. Of course all of these numbers pale in comparison to the console sales, so hopefully with the release of UT3 on the PS3 a few days ago, and a 360 release sometime next year, the sales for UT3 will be a lot larger. Christmas could also help to push UT3 PC sales up."
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CustomPC writes:

"GPU physics could be achieved on a single graphics card, and would make a big difference to benchmarks. Even though talks between Havok and ATI have broken down since Intel bought the company, GPU physics were in development for quite some time before that, and it looks as though Unreal Tournament III could even support GPU physics with a future update.

An anonymous source who works in game development told Custom PC that 'the most interesting stuff we've done recently is with a "triple A" game, that's shipping now actually, which is physics-accelerated on GPUs, and in fact in the engine that the game is built upon.'

So which 'triple A' game would this be? 'I'm not allowed to name things at the moment,' said our source, 'which is why I'm being a little bit evasive, but both the engine and the game benefit from GPU acceleration in physics for the eye candy stuff, and it has a very significant benefit in benchmarks, but the developer hasn't yet made a public statement about that.' However, they did say that you could buy the game now."
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Dec 11, 2007 Epic's first patch for Unreal Tournament III (PC) has finally been released into the wild. Bringing the game up to v1.1, the patch contains a huge number of fixes, addressing issues with gameplay, AI, demo playback, server browser, user interface, HUD, blah blah blah... A complete breakdown of what the patch patches up is available on FileRadar. Unreal Tournament III released on PC last month, and you can see what we thought of it here. A PS3 version is hitting Europe next ... » Read More

Unreal Tournament III finally gets released in the US tomorrow and one of its developers, Art Production Manager Chris Mielke, has posted some tips on the PlayStation.Blog. So if you're picking the game up at any point, make sure you take note of Chris' advice. While the main bulk of his post is a walkthrough of the level "Suspense" he also includes some random pearls of wisdom. Check out the blog post and try to osmose as much information as you can in readiness of tomorrow.
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The simExchange has released their monthly industry report.

Key Topics:
- Video games to break record sales
- PC Games continue to cannibalize each other
- Assassin's Creed - the woes of new intellectual property
- Rock Band - Too many hands in the cookie jar
- Wii - Can it handle M-rated titles

Analyst Jesse Divnich comments on sales:

"The prediction market expects November's software sales to be $1.15 billion which is a 42% increase over sales last year... [Software Sales] will be the highest ever seen in the month of November and the first time November sales will break $1 billion... Combining The NPD Group's estimates in October, retailers will net over $4.04 billion in software sales this holiday quarter, a 39% increase year-over-year-a record as well. "
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CVG reports:

"A beta version of the UT3 patch is out, and it's awesome for at least two reasons. 1) It fixes lots of complaints we and other UT fans had about the awkward and over-restrictive menu and server browser, and b) it's backwards compatible.

That would be a total no-brainer in any other area of software design, but it's so rare in game patches that I'm actually going to have to explain what it means. It means you can still play with people who don't have the patch. That curious sound is the collective jaws of Valve, DICE and Blizzard hitting the floor."
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The first patch fixes a long list of issues in gameplay, AI, demo playback, server browser, user interface, HUD, networking, server administration, maps, campaign/co-op, and modding. See the full article for details.
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Any kind of mods created for the PC version, including player created mods and customizations, can be loaded in the PlayStation 3 system which will bring a level of creativity, innovation and replayability not previously seen on home consoles.

All the technology behind the Unreal Engine 3, used in the PC version of the game, is said to be fully optimized for the PlayStation 3 system, which means that the game developers can take full advantage of its power and creativity. With mods and maps already available for the PC version of the game and with others announced, this feature is definitely not just dust in the wind. And it should allow the developers to start working on future releases, too.

The PlayStation 3 Version of Unreal Tournament 3 will be released to North American manufacturing and could show up in stores starting December 11th.The European release will occur later, though, because of some unfinished localization-related tasks. This means that early 2008 (January or February) is the best guess for European UT3 fans regarding the PlayStation 3 release.
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IGN: "The PC version of Unreal Tournament III shipped to retail stores today and is now available for download from Direct2Drive, Epic Games and Midway announced today.

The latest installment in the fast-paced, first-person futuristic shooter franchise uses the Unreal Engine 3 to showcase new environments, weapons and vehicles".
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Nov 16, 2007 Mark Rein has cleared up the current status of Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360, which he was quoted as saying earlier this week hasn't even started production yet. "What I probably should have said was 'start working on it again'," Rein told Joystiq. "We had the game up and running on all three platforms up until last spring. In fact Official Xbox Magazine came out and played the game for a great cover story they did on it. "We stopped working on the 360 version so we could ... » Read More

Joystiq had a spot of confusion yesterday when Epic's Mark Rein was quoted in one piece as saying work hadn't started on the Unreal Tournament III 360 version. Meanwhile, another site was reporting that they'd already played it on 360. Now, Rein has explained to Joystiq that it's not that work on the 360 version hasn't started yet, it's just that it's on hold.

"What I probably should have said was 'start working on it again.' We had the game up and running on all three platforms up until last spring. In fact Official Xbox Magazine came out and played the game for a great cover story they did on it. We stopped working on the 360 version so we could concentrate our efforts on shipping the various PC and PS3 versions. Once we get those out of the way, and take some time to enjoy the holidays with our friends and families, we'll start working on the 360 version again. There's still a decent bit of work to do. For example we have simple LAN play but no Xbox Live implementation yet and we need to work with Microsoft to figure out how to accommodate mods on their platform."
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Unprecedented full access to foliage technology for amateur level builders:

Unreal Tournament 3 will be the latest game to feature IDV's SpeedTree foliage middleware ¿ and the first to give exclusive access to the technology to the modding community.
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Nov 15, 2007 Epic hasn't even started on the 360 version of Unreal Tournament III yet, reveals company VP Mark Rein. He says Epic intends to finish the PS3 version before shifting focus to 360 "early next year", when we were originally expecting it to be released. It seems Xbox 360 fans will have to wait a lot longer for their deathmatch action due to issues with running user-created mods on the platform. In Rein's words: "The PS3 is an open system, and they embrace user-created content. But ... » Read More

The troublesome user interface featured in the Unreal Tournament III PC multiplayer demo has been a source of contention for many players of the game. In a recent post on the game's offical forums, Epic lead producer Jeff Morris has acknowledged the problem and says updates to the menu system are coming, just probably not before the title's PC release next week.

"We're aware that the UI isn't perfect," Morris wrote. "We're working on numerous improvements and additions to the user interface that will be made available in future updates to UT3."

Most have complained the system of menus lacks usability and resembles a UI designed for console titles. Regarding the upcoming PS3 version, Epic VP Mark Rein recently said it's possible the title could still be retailing this year.
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Sumthing Else Music Works announced today that the 2 disc Unreal Tournament 3 soundtrack will be released on November 20th to retail outlets. The soundtrack was written and produced by Need For Speed veteran Rom Di Prisco and the award winning composer of Hitman, Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - Jesper Kyd.
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