Luminous kept in-house

Square-Enix US CEO Mike Fischer has been talking to Shacknews about how the company plans to make use of the new Luminous engine that was off as a tech demo last year.

"This is an in-house tool. We're not building this around a licensing model." However, developer who sign on with Square Enix will be able to use the engine for their games. "It's my hope that this makes teams and creative people around the world excited to work for us because they'll get their hands on some of the best technology in the industry."

When asked whether is was redundant to have several in-house engines, such as IO Interactive's Glacier and the Crystal Dynamics engine Fischer said:

"This is obviously developed by a team that creates these Final Fantasy worlds, that are this amazing blend of technology and magic. It's never a one-size-fits-all solution, and I don't think it ever should be. You need to have the right engine for the right game. Glacier--one of the key features for that is that it optimizes for these incredible crowd scenes. The Crystal Engine has its own thing going for it."

You can have a look at the Luminous tech demo here.