http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18246
Why did the company also license Unreal Engine 3?
TM: We used the Unreal Engine for The Last Remnant because we had a particular Western -- European and American -- market in mind. I believe that the game engine reflected the culture and philosophy of the market, and the creator.
Actually, I wouldn't say that we would use Crystal Tools for everything. To create Final Fantasy, yes, Crystal Tools is ideal and it's good. But for other titles, we could use other engines as well. In that sense, it's always an option to use another method. Also, I don't mean that the Crystal Tools can only create Final Fantasy.
A lot of companies in Japan have mentioned that they feel that the Japanese game market is falling behind in terms of technology, partially because PC development and advances in that sort of technology have been happening mostly in Western markets, and support is in English. This engine, though, seems quite high-end. It's very unusual within the Japanese industry right now. Do you agree with that?
TM: Until the PS3 was launched, regarding the 360 and PS3, it is true. I agree that maybe Japanese game technology is behind because there were no previous experiences, or a base in that PC market in Japan back then. Since then, things have changed. Now, I think it has come to a point when the PC architecture and technologies have advanced, particularly in terms of the Japanese way of expression, such as, "In this game, we feel very strongly that we are very capable."
I do think that in terms of the language barrier, yes, it still is a challenge. We do face those challenges in terms of communication, but in terms of technology, I don't think we're behind. We probably have conquered that problem...or probably we have gone across that point and advanced.
It's always a challenge to do multiplatform -- how did you address the multiplatform issue for contemporary systems?
TM: Actually, there's SPUs for PS3, and multicore for 360 already [optimized]. What really matters is the size of VRAM. But the VRAM size can be handled by adjusting texture sizing, so that can be taken care of. In that sense, I don't think it's that big of a deal that you have to start with the PS3, technically. The PS3 is a very powerful machine, and it's very expansive. So as long as the converting process can be handled correctly, it shouldn't be a problem.
(troll) Translation: Crystal tools more advanced than Unreal 3, PS3 should be used as lead SKU for PS3/360 multiplatform titles(/troll)
Trolls aside, this is a very interesting read, but typically vague as per a lot of JP dev tech interviews. Seems like he's either a bit worried about how well Crystal Tools will really stack up, or his 'JP is more open in sharing tech this gen' line is just lip service, and he's actually still trying to hide his team's work so they'll have an edge in the market.
Either way, hard to really have a good perspective on what he says as we've not really seen anything confirmed running on Crystal Tools in realtime.
