It can be easy to forget that Microsoft didn't always own the Gears of War IP, but we have been reminded of that fact this week thanks to leaked footage of Gears of War 3 running on a PlayStation 3. 

The footage was posted online this week, showing off a PS3 test build from 2011. There are a number of bugs and issues present in the video, so Epic Games didn't appear to put much work into this version, but it is still interesting to see:

Microsoft acquired the Gears of War IP from Epic Games back in 2014, squashing chances of the series coming to PlayStation for good.

In a statement sent to Kotaku, an Epic Games spokesperson confirmed that the PS3 build of Gears 3 is real, but was only made “as part of a tech test” and not as part of a plan to actually bring the game to Sony's last-gen console. Gears of War 3 and Unreal Tournament were both used for Unreal Engine 3 testing purposes.

This specific build of the game came to be public knowledge due to a hack on Epic Games' servers many years ago. One of those hackers, SuperDAE, would later go on to access details of the Xbox One well ahead of Microsoft's official unveiling of the console.

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KitGuru Says: Gears of War is now a first-party franchise for Xbox, but it is interesting that Epic Games compiled a PS3 build of one of those games at all during development. 

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