I just got back from a short private briefing with Epic's Mark Rein detailing the ins and outs of Unreal Engine 3. I'll let you know some of the huge points that were hit on:

• Epic is working on something where they will be able to have support for mods on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

• The Unreal Engine 3 is not as expensive as what is being said. Mark said they will work with devs on something that would be financially viable for them.

• Mark said they pushed every corner of the 360 with Gears of War and that without the 512MB of RAM for details, a game like that would have never been on the console.

• Early on in the presentation they showed a new Unreal Engine 3 game that is coming out called Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia for the Xbox 360. They wanted to show the different kinds of things you can do with Unreal. The game was very cartoony and fun -- kind of like a kid's show Diablo. 

• Epic will release all the tools necessary for Unreal mods and all changes can be made in real time. Overall, the tools looked far more simple and Mark expects a ton of mods to be created because of this. There will even be a book coming out to help makers -- will be available online as well. He said they will release video helpers as well.