Two Epic stories for the price of one today...said price being absolutely free, of course. We're nice like that.

News Blips:

Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski says scorn for Nintendo's Wii U console won't prevent naysayers from buying it anyway. "You know, from what people are saying online, they’re like, 'Oh, it’s just a Dreamcast, whatever,'" Blezsinski told IndustryGamers. "But it’s like, 'Dude, what’s old is new sometimes.'" Blezsinski described how some of Nintendo's much-maligned consoles and controllers of yore -- such as the Virtual Boy and the NES Power Glove -- led to today's devices like the Wii and 3DS, saying,  "A lot of these older technologies that you forget about are [the technological predecessors]. The Kinect is a sophisticated webcam, right? So I’m just dying to see it. It’s Nintendo. I’ll buy it. I know I’ll buy it. They’ll talk shit, but they’ll buy it." Blezsinski's praise is as subtle as adding a Gears of War Lancer attachment to the Wii U. Hint hint.

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein thinks the PC heralds the future of gaming, and consoles must catch up. "We're at the stage in the life of the consoles where the PC has shot by them in terms of capabilities," Rein said to Eurogamer. "Don't forget, every game that's ultimately built is built on a PC. With the PC, you can simulate the future – you can put enough hardware in a PC to show you what a future console will look like." Rein used Epic's "love letter to hardware manufacturers" -- the impressive Unreal Engine 3 tech demo -- as an example that could inspire stronger console development, saying, "We hope the console manufacturers look at that and go, 'Jeez, if we aim for that in our next consoles, we'll be competitive with what you'll be able to do on a PC in a year, year and half from now.' A reasonably priced PC -- obviously you can do it on an expensive PC already." 

EA's digital distributor list for Battlefield 3 curiously forgets about Steam. Joystiq reports that Steam's absence from the now-removed list might be the latest volley in the quiet feud between EA and Valve, instigated by Crysis 2's disappearance from Steam in June. EA hasn't started pointing fingers yet, but its help site entry on its relationship with third-party download services cryptically insinuates something went awry: "When a download service forbids publishers from contacting players with patches, new levels, items and other services, it disrupts our ability to provide the ongoing support players expect from us. At present, this is the case with only one download service. While EA offers its entire portfolio to this site, they have elected to not post many of our games. We hope to find a mutually agreeable solution to this issue soon." 

CCP's upcoming free-to-play Eve Online console tie-in Dust 514 actually carries a cost. "In the beginning, you have to pre-buy credits, so you pay something like $10-$20 to enter the game and you get the equivalent number of credits in the game once you do that," CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson told GamesIndustry.biz. "We call this the 'cover charge.'" Pétursson affirmed that the game remains free, with the cover charge merely existing as insurance for a smooth launch. He added that CCP believes "in growing up a social network behind the game in a slow and predictable way," which precipitated the inclusion of a fee for credits. Dust 514 has a planned Spring 2012 release for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.

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