PS3 gets exclusive on Unreal Tournament III until 2008

The E3 may have been a bit of a drag, but there were a lot of announcements that we can look forward to, particularly when it came to game titles. One area where the PS3 managed to show up the Wii and 360 was with the announcement that Unreal Tournament III would be available for the console this year. Moreso, only the PS3 will have this title until it is released for the 360 in 2008. That, however, was also dwarfed by even cooler news. Mods created for the PC version of UT III will be able to port to the PlayStation:

If you'd like to play Unreal Tournament III on a console in 2007, it's PS3 or bust. Even more shocking? User-created maps, skins, and mods from the PC version will be able to run on the PS3.
That, actually, is a pretty cool feature – one I wouldn't mind seeing more, on other games and other consoles. Morrowind, for example, was twice the success it would have been due to the huge mod community behind it. Unfortunately for those who played the console version, they missed out on scores of user-created content and third-party bugfixes that gave it a lot of replay value. The same is true for the Unreal Tournament series, which has a massive community of people making mods and maps for it. The ability to port those over to a console as well is not a minor point.

Now we'll just see how much it takes off. With sales so low, the actual reach of the game on the PS3 might be limited. Then again, maybe it will help the PS3 turn around. Come 2008, the ball will be in Microsoft's court – and we'll see if they can match the same offering when the title comes out for the 360.