You can produce a web client as in their Unity Player for the web which has around 220million+ installs which is about 50% of Silverlight had in version 3.0 peak data (after we of course inflated the numbers by enticing China to install Silverlight on internet cafe computers blah blah). Basically the number isn't 98% but thats not important what is important is that users will install if the content is worth it (always is the core principle behind ubiquity).
Xamarin Studio is what I actually use to write code for Unity on my Mac installs, and its actually pretty good (its obviously an extension on MonoDevelop IDE). I don't see an issue with Xamarin per say except when you do any "iTard" development etc where you're still bound to the whole Mac UI separation approach to coding (which feels clumsy to develop against). I'd prefer to have seen teh Xamarin guys find a way to inject a LLVM into the equation and remove alot of Apple's nonsense from the equation. I've bee using Unity3D for Enterprise solution that involves Stockpile management for mine sites and i'm treating the entire thing as an SDK not so much a gaming strategy, the core thing for me was always around 2D UI's with a bit of 3D mixed in (effects etc). If you look at http://www.noesisengine.com they have a prefab (plugin) for Unity3D which lets you combine XAML + C# that gets deployed across all devices except -- do not laugh to hard -- Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. I've also found that if you approach your XAML without relying to heavily on a global Resource Dictionary you can also reuse your XAML inside WPF, Silverlight and Win8 codebase as well (just code-behinds / viewmodels / insert your flavors here) vary. As for investing in XNA, I never really got into XNA as i felt it was a lot of work for little gain but I raised it to simply outline that if you take XNA, WPF, Silverlight off the table and all you replace it with is HTML5/C++ and Windows8 Only development... it jsut leaves you asking a simple question "What is it you are actually trying to achieve ...and what are your backup plans should this brilliant strategy fail..." As without those answers Microsoft can buy all the Nokia's they want in the world but all data internal/external point to the reality of "No developer, No party... or...developers, developers,developers and designers" :) --- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.riagenic.com On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Andrew McGrath < [email protected]> wrote: > My understanding is that Unity3D doesn't let you produce a web client. So > we built our own to do web & native from the one codebase. > > Tried to talk to Xamarin about licensing just their compiler to integrate > into the web-based IDE we have built, but they stopped talking about having > an OEM agreement once they saw some screenshots. (Thought I should state > that in case anyone else is thinking of heading down that path) > > So the plan now is to parse C# to Objective-C for iOS and to Java for > Android....unless another option pops up. > > Perhaps a scripting language on top of C# eventually too, so enable > part-time programmers to participate too....looks like there might be a > scriptcs session this Sunday at Microsoft office in Brisbane - so will be > interesting to see where others are at. > > Andrew > > ------------------------------ > *From*: "David Connors" <[email protected]> > *Sent*: Thursday, September 05, 2013 8:47 AM > *To*: "ozDotNet" <[email protected]> > *Subject*: Re: [OT] FixWPF err.. FixUXPlat? > > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 8:40 AM, Scott Barnes <[email protected]>wrote: > >> I had not known that stat but based on their other stats it doesn't >> surprise me .. >> >> Until now Flash has been a strong force in the casual gaming scene but >> since adobe announced its discontinuing work on this it will probably >> create more share for unity >> > > [ ... ] > > >> I will say this though if Microsoft can't backfill XNA with their own >> gaming engine the is unity3d that natural choice or is it a case of acquire >> (which I doubt they will sell) or beat? Which already puts them way behind >> in adoption? >> > > I thought the funding figures for Xamarin were interesting. They have 6 > mil in cash but also got a recent funding round of 16 mil. I don't know > what the equity dilution was for that 16 mil nor why you need it if you > cash spend the cash you have but ... they are a very strategic asset for a > number of companies. I have no idea why no one has bought them yet. As for > doubting Xamarin or Unity would sell ... every man has his price. Spending > 500 mil on Xamarin would get MS a lot better return than 7bln for the > bottom half of Nokia's corpse. > > As for XNA ... it is irrelevant. YOu sould have to have rocks in your head > to invest in it. Great idea for 2001 but in 2013 it would cripple your > revenue as a game dev. Unity gives you one code based across > PC/iTard/Android and apparently Sony is on board in a big way for indie > games on the PS4. > > David. > > >
