Waiting for Unreal Tournament III on 360? You may be waiting awhile. Speaking in a recent interview, Epic Games’ VP Mark Rein commented that development on the Xbox 360 version of UT3 will not commence until early next year.

The holdup, according to Rein, is partly due to Microsoft’s stance on user-created mods.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Part of the reason for this is the Mods. The PS3 is an open system, and they embrace user-created content. But there isn’t really a way to do that on the 360. So our job, when we finish the PS3 version, and we’ve taken a little break, is to sit down with Microsoft and to figure out how we can do Mods on their system.

Mark Rein Interview [RIOTTT via Game|Life]

Read more: Unreal Tournament III 360 Hits This Summer, No Mod Support At Launch, Rein: Work On UT3 360 Has Started, But Put On Hold, XNA Head: Companies Inviting Trouble By Allowing User Generated Content, User Created and Episodic Content Coming To LIVE, Rein: Consoles Are “Stealing” Hardcore PC Gamers