Epic Games has worked very hard in making Unreal Engine 3 the premier middleware in the industry, and not just in the U.S., but worldwide. To that end, the company recently launched its new office in Japan.
“Tokyo is the home of game development,” said Epic Games president Mike Capps. “This is a big step for us at Epic Games. We’re looking forward to giving you support to make the best games ever.”
“Shinji Mikami and I first met Jay at Tokyo Game Show in 2007,” said Goichi Suda51 Suda, CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture, who delivered a congratulatory address. “Jay gave us a private demonstration of the Unreal Engine. We thought, immediately, that this was the engine of our dreams. We decided then and there to use Unreal to develop our next game.”
“Unreal is very easy to learn,” Suda continued. “70 percent of our staff are now using Unreal. It allows us to preview ideas instantly. I hope that Unreal Engine 7 just lets me input a story in novel form and automatically make a game out of it.”
Epic Games Japan Territory Manager Taka Kawasaki then came on to talk about how the platform has grown, showing the characters that contained little over 500 polygons in the first Unreal Engine, but moved up to two million for Unreal Engine 3. The number of developers using Unreal Engine has also increased, with the first version having been used in just 25 games but the third version now used in over 100 games.
“Most importantly, The Unreal Engine allows developers to focus on creativity,” Kawasaki said.
Epic Games Japan Support Manager Jun Shimoda talked about new features, like a texture density indicator and improved particle effects. He also noted that Epic Games representatives that speak Japanese will be on hand to troubleshoot with developers.
Source: Gamasutra
