Mark Rein the man behind UT3 has stated they are going to do some interesting things for Home and UT3 for PS3. He's says that there "planing that we will be able to throw a party together and file into the game using Unreal Space. It won't be as detailed as a real party system but the idea is that we will all be able to meet up and play the game Together". "I think it's really smart that eventually if everybody does that, each company doesn't have to develop its own way to all meet up somewhere and all go into a game."
He states he wishes the 360 could do that and hope they do.

Here is some cool stuff you can do with the sixaxis in UT3, one you can use it to move the hoverboard that will be in it. Mark says it works quite well if you get used to it, and the second is Redeemer rockets, which you fly in 3D space. You can bank and curve and again. Sounds very promising.

CN: Speaking of Home, have you talked to Sony about any of the limitations of your stuff in Home, or are you theorizing that Home stuff will be coming down the road because Home's going to be big?

MR: We're planning that you'll be able to get a party together in Home and then file into the game from an Unreal space. Home's pretty cool, so we're planning to do that. That'll make it easy for... what I like about that is that you'll be able to form without us having to build a party system. It won't be as detailed as a real party system, but the idea is that we could all meet up in a room and go together in the game.

I think it's really smart that eventually if everybody does that, each company doesn't have to develop its own way to all meet up somewhere and all go into a game. I think that's a very smart way to do it, and I kind of wish Xbox 360 would do that, and I'm hoping that they will at some point. In other words, all these games have these different systems for getting together and then traveling into the games together or playing as teams or whatever. I expect that to be a dashboard functionality at some point in the future for the Xbox 360, and I think Sony's already thinking that way with Home.

BS: That's interesting, because in a way, the 360 has a slightly more streamlined process in at least finding and meeting your friends and that sort of thing. But I guess it's true that within each game, you have...

MR: Well, Halo's got a completely custom system for that. It's not something to do with Xbox Live. It's their own system for that. That will be a great feature to have on the service. That's the kind of thing that down the road if they want to attract a lot more subscribers to Games for Windows Live -- again, that's the kind of service that people pay money for. They are paying money for it on Xbox Live, and they could pay money for it on Windows. That's the job of the operating system company, which in the Xbox 360's case is Microsoft. I think to build those things is the kind of stuff to make it easy for games to provide that functionality.

BS: Have you had to do anything specific for Sixaxis motion control on the PS3?

MR: That's pretty safe and easy to do. On Unreal Tournament 3, we have two primary uses for the Sixaxis. One of them is to control the hoverboard. It actually works surprisingly well once you get used to it. The other is for the control of the Redeemer rockets, which you fly in 3D space. You bank and curve, and again, that's another pretty good use for it. We didn't make it part of the regular controls for running and shooting and things like that, because it just didn't make sense.

Final Blade via gamasutra.com »