Wired has a new interview with the guys behind the fantastic Gears of War and the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3. Here’s a clip about what’s next:

WN: Microsoft wants to have Gears games for “a long, long time.” Is Gears of War 2 in the works?

Rein: Right now we’re still working on Gears of War … and we’re still making some great downloadable content, some new stuff for the game. Our next big thing is Unreal Tournament 3.

WN: It’s interesting that the development cycle now extends beyond the release of the game.

Rein: I think that’s an important model if you want to have a game that has a long lifetime…. The Long Tail, I guess you could call it. The downside is that people will say, “we’ve brought PC-style patching to console.” But that’s not a bad thing, to be able to fix something you didn’t get quite right, or create new types of gameplay….

I’m glad people have hard drives and the ability to download new content. We’ve very much applauded Sony for having the hard drive on every single machine. We will absolutely take advantage of the hard drive on UT3. So if you don’t have a hard drive on Xbox 360 and you want to get the most out of your UT purchase, think about getting one.

WN: Mark Rein to gamers: “Buy a hard drive.”

Rein: Actually, I think all the really serious gamers already have a hard drive. We’ve had a huge number of downloads of the Gears of War map pack. There are a lot of people who are downloading content, and a lot of people who are playing online.

JG