Unity and Xperia™ PLAY create a two-hit combo for game developers

Sony Ericsson and Unity Technologies recently announced a partnership to bring games to the Xperia™ PLAY through its Union content distribution service. Through this partnership, Sony Ericsson will feature Union games on the Xperia™ PLAY through its games recommender application. Unity has created a special API specific to the Xperia™ PLAY to offer developers an easy route to implementing the Xperia™ PLAY’s gaming controls and optimizing their games for them. Together, both companies will work with their developer bases through online, business development and event-based initiatives, such as the upcoming Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco, CA.

Unity Technologies is revolutionizing the game industry with Unity, its award-winning development platform for video games and interactive 3D. Union is a business unit of Unity Technologies dedicated to syndicating high quality 3D games across various platforms. Add this tool to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia™ PLAY and you’ve got a killer, one-two combination to produce a serious gaming experience!

The latest version of Unity, Unity 3, is often referred to simply as Unity3D. But simple is clearly not what this tool is, unless you’re talking about its user interface. Unity helps developers to create 3D video games or other interactive content, such as architectural visualizations or real-time 3D animations. The features of this integrated authoring tool include an editor that runs on Windows® or Mac OS® and can produce games for a variety of platforms including Android™.

Unity’s integrated development environment (IDE) includes hierarchical, visual editing, detailed property inspectors, and a cool live game preview. At any time, simply hit play to test out your creation. The editor will emulate your target platform so what you see is what you publish. Unity also supports three scripting languages: JavaScript, C#, and a dialect of Python named Boo. All three can interoperate and can make use of .NET libraries which support databases, regular expressions, XML, networking and so on. Other benefits include a tiered pricing model that fits developers of all sizes, an Asset Store providing great support for advanced effects such as built-in shaders and materials, and most recently, the Union division, a brand new monetization service for Unity developers.

Unity is a comprehensive development tool that has been designed to let developers focus on creating amazing games. Game developers have a lot to love about all the benefits that Unity has to offer – an affordable, easy-to-use interface, great cross-platform support, and a 350,000-strong developer community. With thousands of sucessful games released, Unity is a proven winner. Together, Unity and the Xperia™ PLAY creates a winning combination for game developers.

For more Unity developer information, such as forums, tips and script wikis, go to the Unity Community page. And stay tuned to Developer World for future articles on how Xperia™ PLAY developers can integrate the Unity tool chain into their development environments.

More information

• Learn more about Unity developer resouces>>>
• Read more about the Xperia™ PLAY on Sony Ericsson Developer World>>>
• Learn more about the Xperia™ PLAY on consumer website>>>
• Check out developer guidelines on how to best utilise the Xperia™ PLAY game pad>>>
• Read more and download a developer tutorial about the touch pad on the Xperia™ PLAY>>>