Unity is making more moves: PS3/Vita/PS4 optimized compatibility, and streamlined Facebook games with a new SDK!

Unity is awesome

If you haven’t already heard of Unity and have interest in making video games – whether it be for Facebook, Android, iOS, PS3, Xbox 360, or PC, you need to get this game dev tool now!

Aside from having a great set of tools, community, documentation, and addons, it supports some cool features: you can use Blender files directly, you can code in C# or Unity Script (which is like an ECMA based language similar to JavaScript or ActionScript), and you can download the SDK and release a game for free – no purchase necessary!

Facebook partnership

While the Unity web player is already built into browsers like Google Chrome, it still remains a hurdle to users as most people are unlikely or unable to install plugins for their browsers (especially the less technical folk).

With the added package for Facebook games (soon to be available in the Unity Asset Store), users will benefit with a streamlined interface and setup process when they try to play a Facebook game. As soon as Facebook began deploying the Web Player install, Unity installs on a browser have been heavily boosted – great news for Web Player developers in need of a larger platform reach!

And the available level of integration sounds like an amazing enhancement:

Using the new Facebook Unity package not only makes development easier, but it also allows your games to integrate much more deeply into Facebook’s user experience. Many Facebook prompts will now be displayed directly within Unity, allowing your players to post high scores, invite friends, and brag about their accomplishments without ever having to drop out of full-screen. Even better, on any platforms that don’t yet support these new Unity-native dialogs, the SDK will gracefully fall back to the old JavaScript methods. In the future, we will expand the number of dialogs available natively inside of Unity, as well as add support for additional platforms beyond the Web Player.

[via Unity blog]

Sony PlayStation partnership

Another great announcement from the press is the deal struck between Sony and Unity. With this new collaborative arrangement, developing games on Unity stays the same, but game makers will be able to leverage new PlayStation centric features like trophies and network code.

Additionally, developers will have better access to utilize features of the PS3’s sixaxis controller, harnessing the power from the dual sticks, game feedback, and gyroscope functionality.

Plus it is future-ready:

Through this partnership, SCE will offer Unity for PlayStation® with optimized deployment for PlayStation®4 (PS4™), PlayStation®3 (PS3®), PlayStation®Vita (PS Vita) and PlayStation®Mobile (PSM).

It’s exciting to know as a game developer that a future game release can be deployed to the upcoming PS4!

[via Sony]

Better get going and start making some games!