Sega licenses Unreal Engine 3

[Shoeberto]

Namely because American developers have in general gotten way ahead of most Japanese dvelopers in terms of the technological side of game development, and the typical strategy of building a different engine for every game just isn't as viable anymore.

I don't know that the former is necessarily true, but the latter is definitely going to be a big thing with the new gen.

SE licensed the Unreal engine iirc

Yep.