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Mozilla, Epic Games Team Up To Bring Unreal Engine 3 To The Web

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Mozilla, Epic Games Team Up To Bring Unreal Engine 3 To The Web

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For the longest time, HTML5 was far behind Flash in terms of game development as it didn’t offer a native experience. Mozilla and others have been bridging that gap over the last year, however, and the non-profit’s latest move inspires more hope that HTML5 can deliver native gaming experiences sooner rather than later.

Mozilla and Epic Games announced at GDC that Unreal Engine 3 is now available to HTML5 developers. This was made possible through Mozilla’s work in developing “a highly-optimized version of JavaScript” that allows game developers to bring graphically intensive content to the Web.

Epic had already ported the engine to Flash and there have been a few other attempts at building or porting a 3D game engine to JavaScript, but nothing approaching the size and scope of Unreal Engine.

Epic’s port is based on a very new piece of technology, asm.js and the OdinMonkey JavaScript engine module for Firefox. In essence, asm.js enables code that’s been automatically ported to JavaScript from C/C++ to run almost as fast as the same code compiled as a native app. OdinMonkey adds support for asm.js, which is a subset of the JavaScript spec, to Firefox.

With Firefox OS and the Firefox Marketplace launching later this year, this is a significant win for Mozilla. No, the porting of Unreal Engine 3 doesn’t mean that Mass Effect 3 is going to find its way onto sub-Rs 6000/- Firefox phones, but it does mean that mobile hits like Infinity Blade and Dungeon Defenders will. It should also mean that we’ll see more developers offering up browser-friendly versions of their mobile hits — particularly if the porting process is relatively painless and offers an additional revenue stream.

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Shivaank Rana
iGyaan's Carlos Santana! Shivaank loves Apple products! He stays up to date with the latest happenings of the tech world and gets his hands dirty with the latest Gadgets! Follow Him on Google Plus : Google+