Nintendo Partners with Unity to Make Game Engine for Wii U

Nintendo's clearly on a roll when it comes to trying to make sure the Wii U works out well. Unity technologies announced a partnership with Nintendo today to make a version of the Unity engine that supports the Wii U. Nintendo will then be able to distribute the engine to their own developers and 3rd party devs. Over 1.2 million registered users use Unity and Nintendo will be taking this opportunity to distribute Wii U add-ons to the Unity community.

The Unity engine is used on many different platforms, from browser games to Xbox 360 to Android games. Unity was ranked #1 for mobile game development from a Gamasutra survey and the company won the Wall Street Journal 2010 Technology Innovation Award in the software category. They were also a runner-up for the best use of graphics on Mac OS X at the 2006 Apple Design Awards. 

“The rapid growth of incredible games coming from the experienced and talented developers in our community makes Unity the new development platform of choice for AAA console developers,” said Unity CEO David Helgason. “Nintendo’s unfettered access to Unity will produce a wealth of insanely good games from knowledgeable Nintendo developers and the Wii U deployment add-on will create an amazing opportunity for our massive community of developers to showcase their incredible creativity on one of the most anticipated and innovative gaming platforms to date.”

Pretty bold words, but Unity's accomplishments give some weight to them. It's clear Nintendo is devoted to making sure the Wii U is a successful and well supported platform with a large library of games, but will it be enough to convince consumers? What do you think of Nintendo's efforts? Let us know in the comments below.