Unreal Engine 4 in 2012

Epic boss Mike Capps predicts that the next iteration of the company's stupidly popular Unreal Engine will be out in 2012, no doubt raking in even more cash from developers who don't quite fancy building their own tech.

"We've got Unreal [Engine] 4 in production right now," Capps told Gamasutra. "It's going to be in the next console generation--our rough guess is 2012 [up to] 2018."

As above, Epic has previously gone on record that its fourth engine will squarely target PlayStation 4 and Xbox... well, whatever Microsoft decide to call the next one. "PCs will follow after that," mastermind Tim Sweeney said earlier this year.

"The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle," he said. "Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also.

"We have a small Research & Development effort dedicated to the Unreal Engine 4. Basically, it is just me, but that team will be ramping up to three to four engineers by the end of this year - and even more one year after that."

After Unreal Tournament 3 will Epic ever truly return to where is stated, on PC?