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In August, we shared the news that our longtime partner and global leader in real-time 3D technology, Unity, has chosen Azure as our cloud partner for building and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) experiences from the Unity engine. did. This enhanced partnership builds on our shared commitment to expand the creation and distribution of 3D content, bring related tools and technologies to a wider range of developers, and make games more accessible to players than ever before. Based on
N’Gai Croal, Editorial Director of Microsoft Game Dev, recently had the opportunity to sit down virtually with Marc Whitten, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Unity Create Solutions. Allowing game creators around the world to publish to Xbox consoles and his PC to reach existing communities and build new ones. Watch the full video of the chat below or Watch it here on YouTube.
The discussion was wide-ranging and touched on everything from the similarities (and differences) between the games industry and Hollywood to Unity’s addition of Weta Digital and Ziva Dynamics to its Unity Create Solutions toolset. Unsurprisingly, a large part of the chat is about how the move to the cloud has changed game development, and how Unity’s partnership with Azure has given developers more powerful tools and greater flexibility. It was expanded about whether it will be possible to provide
Below are the relevant quotes from the discussion, lightly edited for clarity.
Mark Witten said that games or movies will create a greater demand for technology.
I think game creators and game players have typically been at the forefront of pushing what is possible with any technology, and then typically filtered through many other use cases. I think humans like entertainment and like to play games. So you give creators a piece of technology, and creators use it to make games. And when you give it to players, they’ll ask its creators to make it a little better.
On the importance of creating cloud-native game development tools, Marc Whitten said:
Undeniably, in a hybrid world, creators themselves find themselves in more and more different places when on teams. So facilitating collaboration, working with assets in the cloud, and being able to access hardware regardless of where it resides is critical to the production experience.
Marc Whitten explains why Unity chose Azure as their cloud partner.
In talking with Azure executives and senior engineering talent, we saw a shared vision. They were very helpful in understanding some potential blind spots and were as excited as we were about the potential for a partnership. They are great partners for us looking at ways to expand.
