Unity Engine Not Coming To Windows Phone 7

Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason says the closed design of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 environment means the platform won't be getting support from the company's popular game engine. Speaking to Develop, Helgason said the company couldn't support the Windows Phone OS because it's "a relatively closed system, so you can't run native content." Windows Phone 7 currently only supports apps written in Microsoft's XNA or Silverlight environments, and a special exemption is required to allow for third-party engines. Unity has been in discussions with Microsoft to get such an exemption, Helgason said, "but they couldn’t open up the platform, and that led to us deciding to not support it." While the Unity engine could be rewritten to work with Microsoft's environment, as has been done with Flash, that move "would require a huge amount of work [with] uncertain results," he added. That said, Helgason said the company is looking ahead to Windows Phone 8 and is hoping "it will be easier to work on that system." Unity's engine currently supports development on iOS and Android, as well as PC, Mac, web browsers and the major home video game consoles. Windows Phone 7's app marketplace currently has roughly 39,000 apps, 16 percent of which are filed in the games category, according to WP7AppList. Microsoft's mobile platform has had trouble making a significant impact in the U.S., representing only 5.6 percent of all smartphone users according to a recent comScore report.