Topic: Wii U Will Support Unity Engine

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Nintendo licenses the engine for both first and third party development on the system.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/31834

Nintendo has signed a long-term deal with Unity Technologies to bring the Unity game engine to Wii U.

The deal will provide access to the Unity engine's development tools for Nintendo's internal teams and all of their affiliated third-party partners. This makes the Wii U the first dedicated game console to strike such a deal with Unity, as although it is technically available to developers on Wii and other systems, licensing the engine is negotiated for each individual game.

Speaking to Eurogamer, the CEO and co-founder of Unity Technologies, David Helgason, said that he hopes this will appeal to studios that are otherwise "daunted" by console development. 

"It's definitely a Unity first, but as far as we can tell it's also an industry first," he said.

Helgason also claimed that it would be possible for existing Unity engine games to be ported to Wii U, stating that the process of converting it over to the system would take "anywhere between a day and a month."

The Unity engine, which originally launched in 2005, is registered to approximately 1.2 million developers. It has been used in some big home console projects, but the majority of the community around it is comprised of smaller independent teams, particularly those involved in mobile and social networking games.

According to Helgason, the Unity engine will be made widely available to Wii U developers some time in 2013.

[MrPhishfood]

I thought this was a very good move by Nintendo.

In the event that MS and Sony's next gen consoles have incredibly beefed up, developers will have to spend a lot of time creating their own engines or pay out big money to the likes of Epic or Crytek to use their engines.

Lowering the cost of game development for third party developers means even if a game fails to sell by the millions its still okay as long as it turns a small profit. Given the unique nature of the control pad developers won't have to fear being innovative so much.

[TJ Spyke]

Kind of slow, I posted this a few days ago. LOL

I wonder how many real developers use it? Literally anyone can sign up and become a Unity developer (I even have one). Still, glad to see more support for Wii U (even if Unity is really only used for mobile games and XBLA/PSN games).

[Mataata]

Kind of slow, I posted this a few days ago. LOL

I wonder how many real developers use it? Literally anyone can sign up and become a Unity developer (I even have one). Still, glad to see more support for Wii U (even if Unity is really only used for mobile games and XBLA/PSN games).

Dejobaan (the AaAaAA guys) uses Unity. Hopefully this means they'll make some Wii U stuff!

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Kind of slow, I posted this a few days ago. LOL

Sometimes, during busy periods for news, some things get left on the back-burner for a little while. Because of Tokyo Game Show, the priority goes to impressions articles and news from that event.