Unity Technologies Announces Partnership with Sony Ericsson to Bring Games to the Xperia™ PLAY through its Union Content Distribution Service
BARCELONA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA – February 15, 2011 – Today at Mobile World Congress, Sony Ericsson and Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for games and interactive 3D on the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, today announced that they are collaborating to bring Unity-based games to the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY smartphone via Union. Union is a business unit of Unity Technologies dedicated to syndicating high quality 3D games on mobile phones, tablets, app stores, set-top boxes, connected TVs and other emerging new platforms.
Targeting the core gaming demographic and featuring a twin d-pad and analogue joystick-like controls, the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ PLAY will be displaying its gaming capabilities by showcasing three Union games at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Racer by Luma Arcade, Guerilla Bob by Angry Mob Studios and AirAttack HD by Art in Games have all been optimized for the Xperia™ PLAY through a special API created by Unity Technologies. Unity Technologies is pre-integrating and optimizing the Unity platform for Xperia™ PLAY, ensuring that a rich library of Unity-based games is available to consumers. The new API and platform optimizations will be widely available to Unity developers with a new update coming this Spring. The Xperia™ PLAY is the first such device that Unity has supported pre-launch, and Unity Technologies is the first game development platform Sony Ericsson has partnered with.
This announcement is part of a larger partnership between the two companies. As part of the partnership, Sony Ericsson will prominently feature Union games on the Xperia™ PLAY through its games recommender application, and Union will encourage developers to bring high quality games from all platforms to Xperia™ PLAY. The companies also plan to work together on marketing opportunities to jointly market Union games and cross-market to Unity Technologies and Sony Ericsson’s developer bases online and at industry events, such as Game Developers Conference (GDC).
“Sony Ericsson has a beautiful, ground-breaking gaming smartphone on its hands with the Xperia™ PLAY,” said Brett Seyler, General Manager of Union. “Through our partnership with Sony Ericsson and Union, we look forward to working with our developers to deliver mind-blowing gaming experiences for consumers, taking advantage of the Xperia™ PLAY’s
brilliant input design and powerful hardware.”
“This collaboration with Union and Unity Technologies provides our consumers with access to a vast library of high quality games,” said Steve Walker, Head of Marketing at Sony Ericsson. “Unity Technologies’ development platform empowers content creators to maximize the Xperia™ PLAY’s gaming focus and through Union, we can market a large portfolio of quality releases to our customers.”
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About Union?
Union is a newly formed business unit of Unity Technologies, dedicated to syndicating high quality video games to mobile phones, app stores, tablets, set-top boxes, connected TVs and other emerging platforms. Union works closely with Unity’s video game developers and publishers to build a portfolio of premium gaming titles. Union then adapts, localizes and syndicates this content to app stores, mobile phones and other platforms, as appropriate to the medium, helping developers access technically or commercially challenging monetization opportunities and providing platform partners with a rich gaming experience for their consumers. Union provides an 80 percent revenue share to its developers. For more information, visit: http://unity3d.com/union.
About Unity Technologies
Unity Technologies is revolutionizing the game industry with Unity, its award-winning breakthrough development platform. Unity Technologies has more than 350,000 registered users worldwide — including Bigpoint, Cartoon Network, Coca-Cola, Disney, Electronic Arts, LEGO, Microsoft, NASA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros., large and small studios, indies, students and hobbyists — all using Unity to create games and interactive 3D, like training simulations and medical and architectural visualizations, on the web, mobile, consoles and beyond. Unity Technologies is aggressively innovating to expand usability, power and platform reach along with its Asset Store digital content marketplace and Union game aggregator so that it can deliver on its vision of democratizing interactive 3D technology. Unity Technologies is headquartered in San Francisco and has development offices worldwide. For more information, visit: http://unity3d.com.