Today is an exciting day for all of us here at Unity Technologies as we’re now shipping pre-release beta builds of Unity 3.0 to the first 100 people that pre-purchased the licenses since they went on sale earlier this year (reference)! These folks are the first public users (those not on our staff or in our private alpha/beta test groups) to get their hands on the new release, but they’ll soon be followed by everyone else that has pre-purchased a Unity 3.0 license as those will be rolled out in the next few weeks. But what does that mean in terms of a final ship date? Well, it means that we’re closing in fast and we’re now within a month or so of our launch date. So let this be your call to action if you haven’t yet pre-purchased a Unity 3.0 license, on launch day the prices go back to their normal list rates instead of the pre-purchase discounted rates we’re offering now. Get ‘em while the gettin’ is good!
And so yes, this marks the start of that final push to release the awesomeness that is Unity 3.0. With that, those in the private beta have been given the green light to discuss the coming features publicly so look for chatter across the forums and online universe, and as always let me know if you have any questions, rock on!
Hi, How do we know if we were one of the qualifying preorders to expect the beta? I pre ordered a few weeks ago. Would it be sent to my email address I used? I purchased the iphone version with Unity free. Would I still be eligible for the beta? We will be working mostly in windows, just switching over to mac to compile and test.
I’m likely the only one that’s going to say this, but… bummer. I was really hoping it wouldn’t come out until mid/late August. That’s about when I get my property tax refund and I think I would have had just barely enough to buy Unity. When it goes back up to $1500, it will be just out of my reach again. 'doh
It looks great though! I hope to get my hands on it before too long. I’m sure the free version will still have some nice new features that I’ll enjoy. I look forward to it!
Nah… I had the same hopes… now I’m just rushing to scrounge up enough money to buy the upgrade from pro 2.x to 3.x at $500 (I’m a starving artist student). I figure I’m going to buy it at some point no matter what, so I’d may as well get it while it’s cheap.
