Don’t ya just love it when the big companies work together instead of competing over market share? Well, even if you don’t, there’s no denying that this is a big deal. Depending on who you ask, Visual Studio may not exactly be the IDE of choice, but at least Unity, Unreal Engine 4 and Cocos2D developers now have the option of making it just that. Groovy.
Note that the Visual Studio featured is, in fact, Visual Studio Community, which is more or less a free version of Visual Studio Pro (as opposed to its larger sibling, Visual Studio Ultimate). Much too confusing with so many different versions, ya know? Anyway, what this means is that the three aforementioned engines can now be used with Visual Studio for coding, debugging and all that fun stuff, in favor of using the built-in IDE. Or at least, I think that’s what it means.
Microsoft has announced new collaborations with Epic Games, Unity Technologies and Chukong Technologies that will allow devs to easily integrate Visual Studio with their game engines.
While that’s pretty awesome news for developers across the board, Microsoft is under the impression that “tighter integration” can be accomplished, and as such, will be working towards that goal in the future. Could they be referring to support for upcoming Visual Studio 2015? Maybe. Chances are we’ll find out, as its release date – which is currently undetermined – approaches.
For now, how about a glance at Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Cocos2D, or all three, alongside Visual Studio Community? Won’t cost a single cent after all, and who knows – it just might trigger a genuine game dev groove!
(Source: Develop, MSDN Blogs)
