Valve's Source Engine is now available for the Xbox 360 and is perhaps the first real rival to Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.
Developers looking for an alternative to the Unreal Engine 3 can now look towards Valve's Source Engine, which is now ready as a middleware solution for the Xbox 360. Source has for a long time been a major player in the PC scene and has now been refined and optimized for the Xbox 360 hardware.
According to Valve's Gabe Newell, Source Engine is suitable for the creation of "FPS, RTS, RPG or delving into new genres."
AdvertisementValve is currently working on Half-Life 2 for the Xbox 360, a bumper package containing not only HL2, but also Episode One, Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. The same Half-Life 2 bundle is also on the way to the PlayStation 3, but a Source Engine middleware solution is not currently in development for the PS3.
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was scheduled for the end of 2006, but is now expected sometime early in 2007 - as are the Half-Life 2 packages for next-gen consoles.
archmaster wrote at 14:02 on 05 April 2007
do you need to download?
does this mean you have to download the game?
Karlius wrote at 14:10 on 05 April 2007
sounds good! Competition for games is always good but the Unreal engine has been great in Rainbow Six and Gears so it has a lot to live up too. Lets hope it can!