Unity Engine is best known for supporting mobile and digital games, but Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason sees his company's game development engine as more flexible than that. Nintendo apparently does as well, partnering with Unity on a worldwide licensing agreement that offers first- and third-party developers Pro level engine access to Unity's tools for Wii U development. The partnership also grandfathers in the existing 1.2 million Unity licensees to the Wii U platform, which Helgason tells us is, "extremely easy" to port to -- Unity's calling the partnership an "excellent opportunity" to port existing Unity games from "thousands of studios currently developing mobile and social games." The partnership's effects aren't immediate, however, as Unity Engine's Wii U support won't go live until 2013, which tells us that we won't see any fruit from the collaboration until some point in 2013 at the earliest.

When pushed, Helgason wouldn't out any potential games headed to the Wii U via Unity, nor would he offer up names of studios interested in working with Nintendo's next console. It's not hard to imagine big Unity games like Slender and Rochard ending up ported to the Wii U, of course, but it sounds like we'll have to wait a bit longer before we hear which games will benefit from the partnership first.

Continue reading Unity and Nintendo partner to bring Unity Engine, and its 1.2 million devs, to Wii U

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Unity and Nintendo partner to bring Unity Engine, and its 1.2 million devs, to Wii U originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.