The new Luminous engine that is being developed by Square-Enix can be crossed off the list of possible engines to license for software development. The publisher has confirmed that it is its intention to keep the Luminous engine for in-house development only.

When pressed for more details on what the term “in-house” meant, Mike Fischer (President and CEO of Square-Enix) recently told the Shack news that, “We are not building a licensing model around it. This is an in-house tool.”

Apparently, however, developers/studios that sign publishing deals with Square-Enix could gain access to the Luminous engine as part of the deal.

The Luminous engine’s development followed a trend that we have started to see with a number of the larger publishers where they have developed significant time and internal resources in the development of publisher-owned engine technology, rather than licensing the technology from another party or engine developer. A number of new or enhanced versions of recently developed engines that are publisher-owned are expected to be a part of the new consoles when they launch later this year.

Read more here about the Luminous engine.