Xbox One indie devs to get Unity tools for free

Xbox One
Microsoft is making the Xbox One more indie-dev friendly

Indie devs, rejoice! Microsoft has come out today to say that it will be offering the Xbox One Unity add-on for free.

The partnership between Microsoft and Unity was announced in June, but the news of the Unity add-on being offered at no extra cost will be another boon.

"We talked internally at ID@Xbox about ways we could help developers for Xbox One," said Chris Charla, director of ID@Xbox in a blog post.

"We thought about paying for some developers' Unity licenses but the more we talked about it, the more we felt paying for some developers' licenses and not others just didn't feel right."

Level playing field

After first announcing that it would not allow self-publishing to Xbox One, and then flipping its position to announce its ID@Xbox initiative, which will allow self-publishing and further tech support, Microsoft is slowly winning back the confidence of indie devs.

Unity is a across-platform game engine and development software (or middleware) that allows you to create and publish games on different platforms.

Scheduled to be launched sometime in 2014, the tool will support "every element of Xbox One, from Kinect to SmartGlass to the impulse triggers of the new controller", according to Charla.

"To us, ID@Xbox is about providing a level playing field for all developers."

The Unity add-on will also be available for Windows and Windows Phone too at no extra cost to all devs involved in the ID@Xbox program. Microsoft will also offer for free special Xbox One-only Unity Pro seat licenses for Xbox One developers in the program as well.

Via: SlashGear

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