PlayStation Mobile has not been the ubiquitous handheld success story that Sony clearly intended it to be, with the grassroots indie game marketplace shaping up to be a haven for interactive calculators and not a lot else. Nevertheless, the platform holder is soldiering on with the initiative regardless, and has just released a preview version of the popular Unity engine designed specifically for the cross-platform environment.
While developers won’t be able to publish on the PlayStation Store just yet, the sampler will allow content creators to tailor their titles to the PlayStation Vita and various other PlayStation-certified devices ahead of a full summer rollout. Even better, existing Unity users will be able to register with Sony Computer Entertainment to unlock access to the taster for free. You can’t really argue with a non-existent fee.
The Japanese giant has been working closely with Unity for some time now, announcing full Vita compatibility in January. While this is unlikely to excite non-game creators, the support is important because many developers are beginning to adopt the engine for their wares. And because the software’s headline feature involves almost immediate porting, this means that you may potentially have a bigger pool of handheld titles to choose from in the future.
It’s still early days, but any studio support such as this can only be considered a good thing. A talk on Unity for PlayStation Mobile is set to take place at Unite Japan 2014 in Tokyo today, so there’s a chance that we may learn more coming out of that in the coming hours. Otherwise, feel free to sleep easy tonight in the knowledge that Sony just made it a little bit easier for developers to bring their products to PlayStation Mobile. Hip-hip-hooray!
[source blogs.unity3d.com, via develop-online.net, polygon.com]
Comments 6
Nice! If I got into game development, my games would be for PS Vita and PC.
The question is, does the PS Mobile SDK support trophies on the Vita? If not, as far as I am concerned, its DoA. The addition of trophies to games changed the way I play games (instead of a single run through that I dont even remotely try and 100%, I play over and over and get every little item and perform tasks/stunts that I would never have attempted before). I could not imagine going back to the non-trophy days.
Nice, more games for my Xperia Play is a good thing.
Somewhat related, anybody hear anything on the PS Now beta? I received my acceptance email over a week ago, maybe 10 days, filled out some form, and nothing since.
I just want the Modern Combat and Nova games!! We need some more FPS goodies on this system.
Mobile engine? Meet mobile platform.
I'm surprised it took Sony this long to implement this. It should've been a no-brainer. The Vita has vast potential for its touchscreen controls and I have yet to find a game that takes full advantage of that other than Tearaway.
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