I thought Unity 3 was supposed to be ready for Xbox360 and PlayStation 3 development? They boasted this for months prior to launch, and this is what pulled me in mostly. If it weren’t for them mentioning Xbox and PS3, I would’ve just kept my 2.6 Pro license. Because save for Beast, Umbra, Fmod, Mono (which I don’t even really like, I’m sticking with UniSci) a few new features in the scripting department, and a few optimization features, Unity 3.x hasn’t really changed from 2.x, and most of these new toys aren’t even available to indie users! so far as I can tell, 2.x Pro is nearly identical to 3.x Indie. Every time I turn around it’s “this feature is only available in Unity 3.2 Pro”…360 and PS3 deployment was supposed to be the biggest news in Unity’s history. But it’s not even for sale in the Unity Store, addon or otherwise, and virtually no one even mentions the consoles on the forums.
So the question in my mind is was it just a gimmick?
You weren’t ever going to be able to just publish willy-nilly to PS3/360, you have to write to sales@unity3d.com and set up a license on a per-game basis, just like with Wii publishing. This is well-known to anyone who was paying attention at all, and yes there are companies who have done this. You need to be a registered console developer and pay somewhere in the high 5 figures per title. Nobody mentions the consoles because they’re all under NDA. The assertion that “Unity 3.x hasn’t really changed from 2.x” is absurd and frankly laughable; I can only conclude that you haven’t actually used it.
Ya he leaves that impression on lots of people lol.
Intended as a complement (for Eric) btw.
But don’t take it too hard info on console development is a bit scarce with all the hush hush and the high costs. So someone (actually several people myself included) had to ask lol.
I did not want to make Eric out as a troll in anyway there. I’m just saying he has helped (in his right to the point way) lots of people with what should have bin easy questions. With a straight and simple answer. That it just makes us feel stupid for missing them lol.
Eh, someone’s gotta ask these questions. Other people’s posts asking these questions may be so old that newcomers have no hope of finding them. Still, this is the best forum I’ve ever used.
It’s never my intention to make anyone feel like an idiot, but I don’t think there’s a call for needlessly aggressive posts. Especially when basic searching would have turned up the answers for this without having to post anything, since console publshing been covered many times. The primary reason for me using straight and simple answers is because lots of people using Unity don’t have English as a first (or even second) language, so I think that being direct has the least chance of being misinterpreted.
He is not the first who make this mistake ( even some pro around me, made this mistake… )
Unity communication aren’t clear on X360 and PS3.
For example in the store web page, this should be mentioned:
“Xbox360/PS3 is still in beta version. You need to be a registered console developer and contact the salesman staff for more detail and licence price”.
On grady’s defense I think this subject is not not as obvious as it should. I never cared for this feature as I don’t own any of these consoles, but first impression is you just pick console build and take it to your ps3 and show it to your friends.
I mean, you see the screenshot and it’s right there next to web player and standalone, there’s not even a hint some work right away and some don’t.
By visiting the forums regularly for a few months I eventually read about the fees and hassles before being able to make those console builds, so by sticking around before buying unity this shouldn’t be an issue.
Oh and btw, when reading about unity features, I skipped the xbox and playstation part, because it’s something I’m not interested in, but actually I just read it now and they explain how it works on the features descriptions. So a little reading never hurted anyone.
Agreed, outside of a few mentions in forum posts or digging into certain pages, the details of the console side of things is kinda played down and hard to find. Hence all my confusion in the thread I made about it, and I guess here too. I still don’t really know why it’s kept so hush hush, you’d think shouting it from the roof tops would attract more of those who could afford it (more money for UT) and a generally better (for business anyway) class of people.
Saying that, the whole deal with iPhone and Android development side of things confuse me too with the different licenses and versions and what have you, so I’m probably just confused easily I guess.
I’ll just stick to PC builds, more straightforward
That’s a good point, it is kind of hidden, I suppose the Unity folks think that those interested in game developement on that platform would already know some stuff about the requirements. Perhaps a nice disclaimer somewhere would help bring clarity as to what Unity offers in this department. If you are not familiar with console development I can see how this would be very confusing and even a bit misleading without digging around to find the solid answer.
Well, the ones that don’t work are grayed out (it’s more obvious if you don’t use the pro skin), and if you click on them it says your license doesn’t cover it, which seems pretty clear to me. I suspect console publishing is marketed more directly in the appropriate channels, since 99.9% of people just downloading Unity aren’t going to be able to do console publishing anyway. So there probably isn’t a lot of point to hyping it up and making people think they’re going to be able to make Halo 4 in their bedroom, which just isn’t realistic.
This is true, even if I did know all about the Unity console side of things, realistically it wouldn’t do me any good at all. I could never develop anything for them (cause of all the other costs involved), so I suppose as you and Eric both say, no real sense the little folk knowing, cause we couldn’t make use of it. I think I’m just really curious what it’s capable of, specs and features and such, being nosy basically.
Wasn’t ~that~ hard to find. Click the big Unity button at the top of the page. Click Publishing in the sub menu. Click Consoles in the next sub menu or click on the big PS3 kissing 360 pic.
It’s also considered common knowledge (in game development circles) that you can’t Publish to Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii without a rather costly licence and specific approval/checks. Once you have approval, everything else about the system is under NDA. It’s been this way since the days of Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo, the one exception being Xbox Live Indie games, but they’re XNA framework only, and there’s heaps of info on the forums and Unity Answers about how Unity cannot publish XBL Indy games.
A few seconds on Google would reveal most of this. I’m not sure the responsibility falls on Unity to disseminate and redistribute such readily available information. They don’t discuss Steam or Apple’s App-Store publishing details either so all of this seems par for the course.
True, however I do not see the Steam logo or App Store logo anywhere either. Yes the 360/PS3 license info isn’t that hard to find, but I don’t know why I don’t see this at the point of sale or on the download page as to what the version enables you to do.
I agree that its the developers responsibility, but it would be extra courteous customer service to have a visible disclaimer. I think the main reason its “confusing” is that its just not spelled out here: https://store.unity3d.com/shop/ or even here I might expect to see it: http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
I’d like to see Unity support XBLIG, I am pretty certain they cannot because the add ins they get, Beast etc will not be rewritten for the XNA .net environment. That would be Xbox publishing.
