Developers that use Unity can add another major platform to the list of consoles and devices they can release their game on for free.
Unity and Microsoft revealed today that they are partnering up to provide the full Unity game-creation engine to anyone with the Xbox One development kit. This is of particular interest to the scores of indie studios in the world that are flocking to the popular Unity platform. By signing up for the Xbox independent developer self-publishing program, developers will get free access to the Unity Pro license that enables studios using the free version of Unity to publish their games for sale on Xbox Live.
The two companies pointed out that a number of studios are already using Unity to launch games on the Xbox One. Those include beautiful 2D exploration games like Ori and the Blind Forest as well as the inexplicably gorgeous Cuphead, which looks like an early 1940s Disney animation come to life.
“We were able to get the game up and running in less than 4 hours from having no Xbox Development Kit installed on our PC, to actually playing Fight The Dragon on the Xbox One,” 3 Sprockets developer Seon Rozenblum said in a statement. “It was an incredible result, made entirely possible by how well the Unity Xbox One team have managed the Unity engine port, and by how thorough they have been in implementing features and ensuring we could leverage the speed and power of the console immediately.
Rozenblum notes that he had his game, Fight The Dragon, running on Xbox One exactly the same as the PC version in just four days.
Xbox One isn’t the first console to give Unity Pro licenses to its developers. Both Sony and Nintendo have similar deals with the development-engine company for their PlayStation 4 and Wii U consoles.