
Epic Games announced at the Korea Games Conference that the developer kit for its popular Unreal graphics engine will soon “generate
iOS applications.” In other words, one of the most popular and advanced 3D engines used by console and PC video games will soon be used to produce graphically impressive
iPhone iPod touch and
iPad games.
Epic demonstrated a tech demo game running the Unreal engine called
Epic Citadel [iTunes link] at Apple’s event unveiling the
new iPod touch earlier this month, then made the demo available as a free download from the
App Store. The demo has since been downloaded one million times, so the unprecedented graphics must have impressed iPhone and iPod-wielding gamer geeks.
Apple has been trying to make the iPod touch and the iPhone the biggest and best portable gaming devices, and depending on how you measure success, the company might have done just that. Casual games and remastered classics have performed well on the platform, and Apple just launched an
Xbox Live -like social gaming platform called Game Center.
Epic Games revealed its iOS developer kit plans because it recognizes the potential of the
smartphone gaming market. It also revealed that it is running the engine on the
Android platform, but it didn’t say when or if that platform would be publicly supported in the developer kit.