Unity Details Close Ties With Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play

Engine provider Unity Technologies on Tuesday detailed a close partnership with Sony Ericsson that will highlight Unity-distributed games on the new Xperia Play mobile phone. Unity, which develops the widely-used Unity3d engine, said Sony Ericsson will "prominently feature" Union games on Xperia through the mobile's game recommender application. Union is Unity's distribution arm which brings developer's games to non-iOS portals. Unity takes a 20 percent cut of a Union game's sales. Unity added that it will encourage developers to bring games from other platforms to the Android-based Xperia Play, which features slide-out PlayStation-style control pad. The mobile is the first PlayStation-certified smartphone, and is Sony's attempt at addressing the rapidly-growing smartphone gaming market. The two companies also have joint marketing plans for Union games, and will also cross-market to Sony Ericsson and Unity developers at game industry events. Unity added that Luma Arcade's Racer, Art In Game's AirAttack HD and Angry Mob's Guerrilla Bob were optimized for Xperia Play using a special API from Unity. The engine maker is "pre-integrating and optimizing the Unity platform for Xperia Play" to make it easier for developers to bring Unity-based games to the new platform. The new API will be available to Unity developers this spring, when the Xperia Play is due to launch in the U.S. via mobile carrier Verizon. Sony Ericsson mentioned briefly over the weekend that Unity would be partnering on the Xperia Play, marking the first time Unity has partnered directly with a platform holder. Unity has 350,000 registered users worldwide.