The European PlayStation 3 owners have all the reasons to be extremely happy right now, since Midway has announced that Epic's Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3 will hit the store shelves starting this 22nd of February. Even though this release is made a couple of months after the North American one, there is no reasons for the Europeans to be unhappy - we're talking about one of the most beloved games in the history and one of the best multiplayer experiences ever!

Part of its success is, of course, the omnipresent marketing - Midway wanted to be sure that everybody knows that the game is coming, so they invested some "multi-million Euro" in publicity, resulting in an enormous TV presence, as well as 1 billion page impressions on its online activity. There is also a partnership with SCEE - they will promote both UT3 and the PSP version of God of War at a combined launch event to be in Paris this year.

Martin Spiess, European Managing Director of Midway Games, said: "The separated format releases have worked well, effectively giving each SKU its own space. Epic has delivered a game of impeccable quality and superb playability, and sales figures clearly show the timing was also spot on." He added, "It's impossible to overstate the strategic value we place on the Unreal franchise, which is why we're investing considerably in bespoke launches for each of the games' formats."

Having in mind that Unreal Tournament 3 is producing so much income, it's no wonder that Microsoft is interested in the acquisition of the Epic Studios - but that is another story. Our reason of joy is that Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 is coming to Europe and, as long as Epic keeps brining quality games, it does not really matter what company acquires them, right?