With Epic Games having pledged its support for Next Generation Portable at this year’s PlayStation Meeting in Japan, this tidbit of news comes as little surprise. The company announced today that it has opened up Unreal Engine 3 licensing for NGP, calling the tech inside Sony’s portable powerhouse a “true game-changer.” Now that’s a vote of confidence.

Epic’s Mark Rein is particularly impressed with the forward-thinking stance Sony has taken with NGP, further noting that “multiple UE3 licensees” already have projects for the platform underway.

“We were very proud to be onstage with SCE to give the world just a taste of what Unreal Engine 3 can do on NGP,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

“NGP raises the bar for the performance of handheld platforms with its multi-core GPU and shader-based, multi-core CPU. This makes Unreal Engine 3 a particularly advantageous fit for NGP. Furthermore, multiple UE3 licensees are already working with NGP, some of which have indicated they intend to release their games for the platform’s launch.

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