VE3D - Recently, you guys announced that you licensed the Unreal Engine 3, what were some of the deciding factors of getting Epic's latest tech?

Dr. Ray Muzyka: The Unreal Engine 3 tech is very impressive - we carefully assessed the many available graphics engines out there and this engine is the right one for the specific title that it's being applied to. It has advanced features which will be perfect for the kind of game that we're applying it to - that game is shaping up to be quite amazing even at an early stage of development! We'll reveal more about that title in good time :) Of course, we still have our own engine technology in development with the BioWare Eclipse Engine - which is shaping up to be really impressive - and we are also continuing development of powerful engine technology on our BioWare Aurora Engine, BioWare Odyssey Engine (both of which are currently licensed to external partners), and the Jade Empire Engine, the Dragon Age Engine for those games. BioWare is really committed to our own future tech development - hence we're putting a lot of resources into BioWare's TAG group, which is very important to our future project development!

If anything, this licensure of a high-quality externally developed engine serves as a bridge to allow us to get a next-gen PC and/or console game done in a timely manner, and helps us to continue to diversify the kind of RPGs we make. We have a very large fan base at BioWare (two million+ members at the Bioware Community at www.bioware.com) and we recognize that it helps us to continue to grow our community by expanding the definition of RPGs, while still retaining the core of a great story, compelling character interactions, epic exploration and really fun character progression.