It took Midway quite some time to come up with a release date for Epic's Unreal Tournament III, probably due to the debate with Microsoft whether UT3 will feature mod support on Microsoft's console.

The positive news is that the boys over at Midway finally got into gear: the Xbox 360 console version will hit the American shelves on July 7 and the European ones on July 4.

Negative is that Microsoft still stand by their old motto: talk is silver, silence is golden. According to the current state of information, it's rather unlikely that there will be mod support for the Xbox 360 if we remember the N+ debacle correctly: regarding the map-sharing functionality Metanet's developers had to pull the plug in the very last second before the launch of their ninja platform game N+ cutting the map sharing to a utmost minimum (that is: you can only share maps directly, from peer to peer). If the sharing of simple levels is a problem for Microsoft, then imagine what a headache a fully fleshed-out, powerful mod interface could do to them.

Apart from split-screen capabilities (for both local and online play), two brand-new characters, an overhauled Warfare mode, and all the downloadable content released by Epic, the Xbox 360 version will feature five exclusive maps though. Is this consolation enough for the 360 fanboys out there?