Today, Unity announced support for Microsoft’s Xbox PC Remote Tools in Unity 6.5, now available. With this integration, any Unity developer building for Windows can deploy builds directly to a remote PC on their network — turning any Windows machine into a devkit, no manual file transfers required.
“Developing Unity games on remote Windows devices, from Windows Powered Handhelds to Windows Desktop PCs, just got a lot easier. Unity’s integration of the Xbox PC Remote Tools helps bring these capabilities to all Unity customers, building games on Windows, in a way that is intuitive and easy to do within their existing Editor workflows.” - Zach Hooper, Principal Product Manager, Xbox
The problem: manual steps slow down multi-machine testing
Until now, Unity developers targeting Windows had to build locally, then manually copy the output to a separate machine — via shared drives, USB, or other ad hoc methods. For studios testing across multiple hardware configurations, developers whose build machine isn’t their test machine, or teams validating on Windows-based handhelds that lack a keyboard and mouse, this added friction to every iteration cycle.
How it works
Developers install Xbox PC Toolbox on both their development machine and their remote devkit, then pair the two devices. In the Unity Editor, they select Xbox PC Remote Iteration as the deploy method in the Windows Standalone Build Profile and enter the IP address of the remote machine. Unity handles the rest — deploying the build directly to the paired devkit. This works with both full and incremental builds.
Developers can continue to attach Unity’s Debugger and Profiler to the remote session, the same way they connect to any networked player today.
No GDK required, no license restrictions
Xbox PC Remote Tools support is available to all Unity license tiers and does not require the Microsoft GDK. Any Unity developer shipping a Windows-based game — whether targeting desktops, laptops, or handhelds — can use it.
Availability
Xbox PC Remote Tools support is available now in Unity 6.5. To get started, visit the Unity 6.5 documentation and the Xbox PC Remote PC Toolbox documentation.