Unreal Engine 4 Now Supports SteamOS, New Consoles

Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4.1 on Thursday, which now supports the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One and Valve’s SteamOS platform. The company has the Linux and SteamOS support listed as beta in the release notes, stating that deploying projects to Linux requires compiling source from GitHub using a Windows computer.

"Since releasing Unreal Engine 4 to the community last month, we’ve been working with Sony and Microsoft on a process for opening the engine up to all subscribers seeking to build games for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This effort has now succeeded!" says Epic’s Josh Adams.

Epic Games introduced a subscription model for Unreal Engine 4 back in March, opening the doors to the whole game development community. Subscribers have access to all the tools, features and complete C++ source code. In addition to the monthly fee, developers are required to pay 5 percent of gross revenue resulting from a commercial product built using this engine.

"All Unreal Engine subscribers who are registered Xbox developers or registered PlayStation developers (including members of the ID@Xbox indie program) can receive access to UE4’s complete source code for their respective console platforms, at no extra cost," Adams writes on the Unreal Engine website.

In addition to the subscription model, developers can also license Unreal Engine 4 through "custom-negotiated" terms. This is for companies that want a closer relationship with Epic, or those who seek to reduce or even eliminate the 5 percent royalty in exchange for up-front payment.

"For the past two years, some of the world’s leading console developers have been using UE4 to build their next-generation games," Adams writes. "They are doing some amazing things, and we’re very excited to be able to open up the console code and tools far more widely! We’re also grateful to our partners Microsoft and Sony for their efforts in making this release possible."

To see what’s changed in Unreal Engine 4.1, head here. Let's see some amazing things on Linux and SteamOS!

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  • Steveymoo
    I like their subscription model. Pretty good for indie developers!
    Reply
  • brandonjclark
    I like their subscription model. Pretty good for indie developers!

    Are you kidding? It's the worst out there as far as big-name engines go. They will make you pay 5% of your GROSS REVENUE even if your game loses money.
    Reply
  • Kwaz
    I like their subscription model. Pretty good for indie developers!

    Are you kidding? It's the worst out there as far as big-name engines go. They will make you pay 5% of your GROSS REVENUE even if your game loses money.

    Why would Epic base their percentage off of profitability or GMROI$? That would be ludicrous. Epic has no direct impact on profitability - why should they take a cut for bad marking / bad financial decisions / etc?

    Let me try to put this into context - Imagine you have a cookie recipe that a bakery wants to license to make and sell cookies. You base your cut off of the revenue of cookies that are sold as the recipe is not a product / tangible good. Unfortunately the bakery burns the cookies / puts them in unattractive packaging / lets them sit in the warehouse too long and they go bad / the CEO gives everyone Ferrari's and trips to space / etc and the bakery doesn't make any money or looses money due to this. Is the recipe that you licensed to the bakery responsible for any of those decisions? NO! Your recipe has nothing to do with the bad decisions that the bakery made leading to their financial hardship.

    Reply
  • anathema_forever
    5 percent of gross is going to be higher than if it were of real income so is that a reasonable percentage.
    Reply