Developers Epic and DICE are focused on the future

At this point, most gamers probably won't be surprised to hear that the Wii U isn't a primary focus for third party companies. Well, you should never say "never," but for the hopeful Wii U owners out there, both Epic and DICE have confirmed that Nintendo's newest platform really isn't their primary focus right now. That is to say, the Unreal Engine 4 and Frostbite 3 aren't catering to the Wii U.

Considering the Wii U is pretty much the same generation as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the revelation really isn't much of one. On the subject, Epic Games' co-founder Mark Rein explained that they simply aren't aiming for the current era of "PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or Wii U. It's next-gen technology." And that's where their aim is set.

As it stands, Epic can boast that the Unreal Engine 3 remains the best non-Nintendo engine for the Wii U. So when it comes to the Unreal Engine 4, Epic really wants to keep their eyes ahead on the fast-approaching next generation. Rein said:

"The truth is, if a developer wanted to take an Unreal Engine game and put it on Wii U, they could. Unreal Engine 3 is kicking ass on Wii U. The best games on Wii U are made on our technology. What more do you want from us?"

DICE has the same outlook when it comes to Frostbite 3 and Wii U support. Battlefield's Patrick Bach did a fair job of explaining things from a developer's perspective. Concerning Frostbite and the Wii U, he remarked:

"The biggest problem we have right now is we don't want to back down from what we see as our low spec machines. We right now don't have support for the Wii U in the Frostbite engine. The reason for that is it takes development time. What should we focus on to create the best possible Battlefield experience? We are now focused on PC and the current-gen platforms, and then there might be other platforms in the future that we can't talk about..."

DICE has already confirmed that Battlefield 4 won't be released to Wii U. Recently, BioWare did announce that Dragon Age III and the next Mass Effect would both be running on Frostbite 3.

If you're curious to see exactly what Epic's Unreal Engine 4 can do, the studio has been eager to show it off in tech demos. The most recent one, seen at GDC, will undoubtedly leave you breathless.

Update (3/31/2013): Just to be clear, the Unreal Engine 4 can run on current-gen hardware, even if Epic is choosing to focus on next-gen. In an interview with Engadget, Mark Reins laughed over entire thing, and everyone's apparent overreaction to the obvious. He clarifies:

"You heard the stupid gaffe yesterday about the Wii U. If someone wants to take Unreal Engine 4 and ship a game on Wii U, they can! If they wanna ship an Unreal Engine 4 game on Xbox 360, they could make it happen."

Thanks for the tip, nnnddd101010!