Epic's Lead Producer Jeff Morris took a second to talk with me last week about the decision to allow mods to make their way from PC to PS3.

We talked game modding until Mark Rein showed up with the script of the Gears of War movie and got me all flustered. Morris says that's why Rein isn't allowed to go to press events "It always turns the discussion back to Gears of War." I think he was kidding.

I've always felt that user-created content has long been a sort of holy grail for console shooters. It is mods, I think, that help extend the life of shooters on the PC and it's the last thing, well one of the major last things, you can't do on a console shooter.

Not anymore.

When Unreal Tournament III makes its way to the PS3 it will bring with it the ability to import user-created content including maps, weapons and, yes, mods.

Morris said that the mods will be created on a PC and then "cooked" to work better on a PS3 using a built-in option. That file can than be slapped onto a Memory Stick and imported into the PS3 version of the game with the console's built-in MS reader. He said the company is also looking at ways of making the mods downloadable through an in-game browser on the PS3 and perhaps even Home.

The current plan is for the content not to be filtered by either Sony or Epic, leaving it to the gamers themselves to be the arbiter of what is and isn't worth playing on the console. I suspect one of the companies will retain the right to remove content they deem offensive.

Morris told me that one of the reason's this ability to import mod content is currently only announced for the PS3 is because Sony was the only company willing to allow it. Microsoft has historically been a bit gunshy when it comes to unfiltered user-created content and Nintendo is downright paranoid.

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