Game Informer caught up with Sony's Worldwide Studios bigwig Phil Harrison at E3, getting all the right answers to all the right questions. Yes, Sony is working with Immersion on rumble. Yes, there may be Home trophies added to older PLAYSTATION 3 games. Yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is "exclusive." But what Phil said about the Unreal Engine, especially in light of Silicon Knights' recent lawsuit against Epic Games, is probably the most interesting portion of the interview.

I was personally wondering what the agreement between Epic and Sony to refine the Unreal Engine on the PS3 really meant. Fortunately, GI's Billy Berghammer asked the man who would know best. Phil says:

If we're honest, we didn't do enough of a good job supporting [Epic Games] and getting them the tools and technology early enough. Also, Epic isn't a huge company. They don't have unlimited resource. We have parachuted in some of our SWAT team of super engineers to help them. Specifically, to optimize for SPUs, which are the point of difference that the Cell Processor has. That process is under way. The benefits that it yields to end developers whether they're writing exclusive titles or multiplatform titles is that the performance on PS3 goes up exponentially, and it will make for a much better game experience.

Great! But what follows is even more interesting. When asked about Epic not "[having] their tech up to speed" with developers "waiting for updates", Phil responded to the announcement as an admission that "It's going to get fixed, it's going to get better?" with:

Yes, I think that's a fair summary. We know that there are a lot of developers who are using the technology, so this is a significant impact for the industry.

Granted, this was in relation to multiplatform games built on the Unreal Engine, something that Silicon Knights' Too Human needn't have worried about. But does this lend credibility to the claim that Epic was not providing proper support to its clients licensing UE3?

A Conversation With Phil Harrison [Game Informer]

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