Epic Games

Mac support is the principal addition in Epic Games' latest update to its Unreal Development Kit (UDK) beta, with the company promising developers "easy cross-platform distribution." More >

Gears Of War 3 producer Rod Fergusson has revealed that the game will be playable in stereoscopic 3D. "It felt like something we wanted to have," he told Eurogamer. "It was a feature we didn’t want to be deficient in. It's still fledgling technology, it's still a niche feature, but it was something we could support. I love the qualities it provides, the window into a world…It's a different experience but it's a really good one."

Speaking to Gamasutra, the Epic Games president said the increasingly prevalent free-to-play, microtransaction-supported model will not reach consoles "as quickly as everyone thinks," with price and the need for retailers standing in freemium's way. "It'll be a while before the trend hits the console space," he said. "I don't know about most gamers, but as soon as I spend $60, I don't want to spend five times that on additional sales for the game - I feel like I should get a good solid experience for that money. We love [retailers], that's how we get people excited about our games. I like having those game stores and I don't want to lose them."

In an extensive interview published on the site today, executive producer Rod Fergusson admits the premature leak earlier this month of a development build of Gears Of War 3 was "saddening" and "frustrating," but saves his harshest words for those who sought out story spoilers. "It's people choosing to ruin their own experience," he tells us. "I get people going, 'oh no, I just watched this thing on YouTube and it's totally given away something'. And I go, 'well, why did you go looking and why did you watch it?'" He also hints at repercussions for those that shared video footage of the game, saying: "We're extremely diligent about getting that stuff taken down and issued a call to fans to not perpetuate it…and just keeping track of those who do. I don't think everybody's aware of the potential repercussions of those types of actions."

Speaking to Industry Gamers, Epic Games president Mike Capps admitted the Unreal franchise had been ignored while the company focused its efforts on the Gears Of War series - and that he personally would like to see Unreal return. "It's been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it's an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here," he said. "We haven't been giving it the attention it deserves because we've been focusing on Gears Of War and we're still a relatively small company. We've been sort of focused on making new properties, which you've seen with Shadow Complex, BulletStorm and Infinity Blade, but sometimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises."

A development build of Epic Games's shooter, set for release in September, appeared on torrent sites over the weekend. Said to contain the full singleplayer campaign, the leaked version only runs on debug Xbox 360s or those fitted with modchips. In a statement to IGN, Microsoft said: "We have seen the reports of Gears Of War 3 content being propped on the web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation. This content is not from a final build and is not representative of what fans will enjoy when the game launches." The spoiler-averse should take extra care on YouTube: campaign footage has already appeared on the video-sharing site.

Speaking at E3, Epic Games' Cliff Blezsinski pointed to Kinect Fun Labs as evidence that the industry's attitude to hackers and homebrew developers is changing. "I was on a panel with Kudo [Tsunoda]," he said. "He was saying they're embracing a lot of the homebrew and hacker stuff that's going on with Kinect. Generally speaking, when it comes to hackers, you want to embrace a lot of what they are doing instead of fighting it. I think the industry is slowly learning that."

"If we had put it into Gears 3, considering the development timetable, it would have been a tacked-on feature," said Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski during a behind-closed-doors session at E3 yesterday. He's a fan, though: "I had an interesting conversation where one of the PR people pulled me aside and was like, 'It has come to our attention that you might not like Kinect.' I went to the fucking launch of it in New York. I love it. This is so strange."