Epic Games VP Believes Nintendo 3DS Below 'Minimum Specifications' for Unreal Engine

If you were waiting on Unreal Engine support for the Nintendo 3DS before rushing out to pre-order the unit, you might want to stay home. During a GDC Online interview, as detailed by Joystiq, Epic Games vice-president Mark Rein said his company is not working on software for Nintendo's upcoming handheld, stating that "from what [Epic Games] can tell" the system does not meet the minimum specifications for the Unreal Engine.

"We don't have a 3DS, so there's no way for us to verify that," Rein said, "but everything we've been led to believe is that it's below our min-spec. You couldn't do a game that looks like [Epic Citadel] on it, for example."

Rein confirmed that Epic is currently not prepping a version of Unreal Engine for other developers to use with the device. "Like I said, we really don't know enough about it to make a formal comment, but I think if they considered that our engine would be good on it, they would have probably talked to us about it."

Although the comments calculate to little more than "guesstimations" at this time, we anticipate Epic wants to push its engine to as many platforms as possible. Recently, Epic announced plans for an iOS-exclusive title--dubbed Project Sword--utilizing a mobile version of its Unreal Engine 3 technology. Epic Citadel--a free tech demo for the engine on iOS devices--has already been downloaded over one million times since release.

According to Rein, things could change--in terms of the Unreal Engine on the 3DS--when Epic gets its hands on Nintendo's new hardware.

Currently, Epic Games is developing Gears of War 3. For the lowdown, make sure to read about the Xbox 360-exclusive's upcoming beta and our recent preview of the game.