One of the most popular game engines and development tools is Unity, created by Unity Technologies. The tools have been updated a number of times over the past few years to support a wide variety of game platforms, including the PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, iOS, Android and web browser-based games via a Unity plug-in.
But game developers hoping to use the Unity tools to make games based on Microsoft"s Windows Phone operating system may have to wait a while longer. Develop reports that Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason said that there will be no support for Windows Phone 7 for the Unity tools, although he did add, " ... we’re looking at Windows Phone 8 and hopefully it will be easier to work on that system."
Helgason claims the reason for its decision was because Microsoft made Windows Phone 7 a "relatively closed system". That in turn made it impossible to run any Unity-based games natively on the OS. Microsoft requires that any third party app for Windows Phone 7 must be made via its own XNA tools or the WP7 version of Silverlight. Helgason says, "We could, in theory, do what we’ve done with Flash, which is to rewrite the engine so it works inside a non-native environment. So it could be done in theory, but it’s very much in theory because that would require a huge amount of work ... "
By contrast, over 1,000 iOS apps have been made using the Unity tools along with hundreds of apps for Google"s Android browser. The fact that Microsoft is unable to allow third party game engines access to Windows Phone 7 means that a lot of promising games and apps will likely never make it to any WP7-based smartphone.