This is fantastic news!  Unity3D 2.5 has been released a bit early before GDC and it includes the game changing windows build environment and IDE.  This now opens up the Unity 3D market by a huge factor and Unity3d will find its way into many gaming companies that are heavily invested in Windows. We should see the amount of unity 3d players and content ramp up quite a bit this year.

• Forum Announcement
• What’s new in Unity3d 2.5
• Download the 2.5 update
  
  • Mac OS X: http://unity3d.com/unity/unity.dmg
  • Windows: http://unity3d.com/unity/UnitySetup.exe <- well look at that

Dont’ get me wrong I love my Mac Book Pro and continue to use it for development in Unity3D, iphone sdk etc.  But being able to use my windows machine as a dev box is great and I know this will be huge for many windows users not wanting to shell out the $1500 for the unity license AND $3000 for a decent macbook.  The cost wall has been lowered and it is a great investment if you are an indie game developer or a large game developer.

I usually only get excited about open source tools on this blog because they help everyone with skills have access, I hope one day there will be an open source 3d browser based engine as well.  Right now though there is nothing price competitive other than maybe torque instantaction plugin or the gaim engine (quakelive) that comes close with hardware rendering and none of them beat Unity in ease of pipeline.

One thing about Unity3d is it was a game engine from day one, it is only a game engine.  It isn’t like Director or Flash that are also application development kits, rich internet application kits etc.  This is pure game engine baby with hardware rendering for the win. Also, if you want to make 3d games for the iPhone without going hardcore OpenGL ES you can do so with an additional license that opens up your distribution channel to the iphone, flash can’t do that currently unfortunately.

And so it begins… GAME ON!

The unity3d platform is about to realize about 900% or 9x more possible market for selling their wares and I believe will blow up with unity 2.5.  Unity3d 2.5 will bring a windows IDE and development environment to unity3d developers. Many game companies are heavily invested in Windows and having this option is breaking down a huge wall to get this development platform and engine into many new hands and companies.

The best part about unity 3d development is the hardware acceleration, the fantastic pipeline, the ability to publish desktop, web, mobile (iphone) and console (wii) is pretty amazing.  All using the powerful mono open source .net framework as a base.

Full update list:

Windows Editor Support

Unity 2.5 adds full support for Windows Vista and XP, with 100% feature parity and interoperability with Mac OS X. The Unity Editor has been rebuilt to look, feel, and function identically on both operating systems, each running the same underlying engine. The best part? Unity on either platform can build games for either platform — cross-platform in the truest sense.

A Whole New Look

Find the tools you need quickly and easily. The Play buttons are front and center, clearly visible and inviting you to play, test, and improve your work. And when you do, they light up, dimming the rest of the application, drawing your attention to the most important things in the play experience you’re creating.
Precise Navigation and Placement Tools

Improved Usability

Snap any object to customizable increments of position, scale, and rotation values. Drag objects around, clamped to any surface collision. Manipulate objects in local or world space. Use the new flythrough controls to get around easily. And did we mention the completely redesigned rotation tool?

3ds Max Importing

Drag and drop your .max files right into the Editor, including support for all skeletal based animation, multiple UVs, and vertex colors. Autodesk 3ds Max now joins the existing support for Maya, Blender, and all other 3D applications that integrate with the latest FBX plugin on the Windows platform.

Completely Customizable Editor

UnityGUI, Unity’s own GUI creation system, now powers the entire Editor and allows you to integrate your own unique level design tools, AI control tools, debugging tools, difficulty tuning tools, or anything else you need. Over 130 new API entry points enable you to create specialized, customized editor tools and build them into the existing Editor interface.

Tabbed Interface

We took cues from the best designed applications, and the rewritten editor has received dozens of improvements. The most visible change is the tabbed interface, where every part of the interface can be moved, undocked to a secondary monitor, and even stacked to achieve logical grouping.

Information at Your Fingertips

We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that you always have the info you need, when you need it. Model files have previews right inside the inspector. Audio Clips show their waveform with click-to-play behaviour. Meshes show the detailed rendering stats – and that’s just scratching the surface.