Epic recently discussed the possibility of bringing their upcoming Unreal Engine 4 to Nintendo’s Wii U, and while they said it’s not their intention, it is definitely possible if other companies decide to do it. Epic’s Vice President Mark Rein had this to say:

Epic Games doesn’t intend “to bring Unreal Engine 4 to Wii U, but the engine could run on Nintendo’s upcoming console “if a customer decides they want to port an Unreal Engine 4 game” to the hardware.
“We have Unreal Engine 3 running on Wii U. You saw games at the Nintendo press conference again this year – a fantastic demo by our friends at Warner Bros. showing Arkham City running on Wii U. And Aliens: Colonial Marines is coming on Wii U, that’s also Unreal. There’s, I’m sure, several others. Mass Effect was announced for it as well. So we’re certainly playing a role there with Unreal Engine 3.

“I’ll state that I don’t think it’s our intention to bring Unreal Engine 4 to Wii U, but Unreal Engine 4 is going to be supremely scalable.

“We’ll run on mobile phones and on a wide variety of things, so if a customer decides they want to port an Unreal Engine 4 game to Wii U, they could. But Unreal Engine 3 is a really good fit for that platform.”

He was quite focused on pushing UE3 onto the Wii U, reminding us multiple times how well the two go together. While some may take that negatively as a sign of the console’s lack of power, I don’t think it will be too bad. While ported versions of games using UE4 may not look like they would on any future competing consoles, the fact that the engine is “supremely scalable” leaves little excuse for them not to be brought over to the Wii U when they come out. And if the lack of power that Epic desires keeps the Wii U’s price down, I will gladly make that sacrifice!