At Sony's E307 presser, Jack Tretton stood on stage, announced Epic's Unreal Tournament III as a PS3 exclusive and said that Sony was working closely with Epic to "adjust" the Unreal Engine for the PS3 so that it reaches the "best of its potential." Best of its potential? Why would Sony need to be helping with that? Doesn't that mean it hasn't been performing? That it's been under-performing? That right there is the crux of the Silicon Knights lawsuit against Epic — that Epic's aftercare and the Engine itself is half-baked. Let's take a look at the allegations:

• By March 2006, Epic was obligated to provide a fully functional Unreal Engine 3 to Silicon Knights. Epic did not until November 2006. Apparently that means SK was using an Unreal placeholder for its E306 Too Human showing>. From the suit: "Had Epic complied with its promises and contractual obligations, Silicon Knights would have had the opportunity not only to generate
a positive press and industry response to Too Human, but also to finish the game earlier and on
better financial terms." What's more, SK was "bound" to the UE3 and had to wait for Epic to finish it.

•Epic did create a working version of the Unreal Engine 3 for the Xbox 360 before E306, but kept this code to themselves. Later, Epic allegedly failed to provide guidance on how to use the Unreal Engine 3. SK claims that since Epic employs only 75 people and was working on two titles (Gears of War and Unreal III), they were spread too thin and unable to help companies like Silicon Knights. By contrast, SK employees 140 staffers focused on creating two titles.

• Epic once again supposedly missed a deadline for an Engine Silicon Knights was going to use on a PLAYSTATION 3 game. Epic missed this deadline by six-months. A functional UE3 for the PS3 was supposed to be delivered by February 2007. It wasn't.

• According to SK, the Engine apparently caused the game to "slow down significantly" due to lengthly load times and "memory-spikes" during loading. Epic apparently had known about this problem with the Unreal Engine since 2004 and promised a solution by 2005. It never came.

• SK claims that the UE3 did not "satisfy" their needs for an "immersive" experience regarding sound, lighting and character interplay. What's more, SK claims the Engine could not render terrain. To quote the suit: "Epic appears to have simply taken-in millions of dollars in license fees from Silicon Knights and other developers, and provided them in return with vastly less than the entirety of the Engine, let alone all parts of the Engine that are necessary to make a videogame function on the next generations systems as Epic warranted."

Couldn't get UE3 support from Epic? Mental images of a panicked SK honcho Dennis Dyack trying to get Epic tech support on the line, only to get some surfer type "The Cliffster is so not in" type phone message. Sure, Silicon Knights have been pointing the finger for their poor E306 showing for some time now. What's more, after reports popped up that Silicon Knights was having problems with the Engine, Dyack contradicted that saying all was fine. Though, isn't it telling that SK ditched the Unreal Engine 3 all together and created its own engine? Or how about games using the U3E have been delayed or scraped? Games like Stranglehold, BioShock, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Turok, Frame City Killer, Fatal Inertia and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. All delayed. Many multi-platform. It certainly does look like there is something wrong with the UE3, and this Sony tech-support highlights it. But what about those developers who've already been working with the Unreal Engine 3? I smell a possible class action suit.

We asked Mark Rein to comment on this issue. He has not replied as of posting.

Luke Plunkett contributed to this post.