Unity, the makers of the most used gaming engine in the world (also named Unity), may be looking at going public next year. According to a report on financial news network Cheddar, Unity is looking at an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares in the first half of 2020 “pending favourable market conditions”.

Unity is looking at Fortnite’s success helping their IPO as well. According to an analyst, backing Unity is a neutral way of investing in the growth of the gaming industry, without necessarily having to worry about picking a winner.

“It gives investors the opportunity to participate in the overall growth of the video game business on all platforms without having to choose a winner among the various publishers,” said Brandon Ross, director and TMT Analyst at BTIG. “And investors understanding of video game engines has been heightened over the past several months as Epic [Games] has come into focus. We believe they have strategic value to some of the tech companies that might be looking to get deeper into games.”

Unity itself has refused to comment on “rumors and speculation”, but the company has been intending to go public for a while now, so this report is entirely believable in and of itself. It remains to be seen exactly what the IPO will be like, and how much money Unity will be able to raise, in the long run.

Unity Technologies has revealed their next engine iteration at GDC 2014 with Unity 5. It is currently available to pre-order and permits access to existing updates and Unity 4.

Some of the new features include the Enlighten lighting system, physically based shaders, a unified shader architecture, in-editor real-time lightmap previews, a new Audio mixer and much more. It is also a 64-bit engine for the first time and include support for Nvidia PhysX 3.3 and integration with SpeedTree.

David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies, stated that, “Every time we ship a new version of Unity, we’re looking to empower developers with technology that’s more powerful and easier to apply than ever before. With the huge additions of physically-based shading, lighting workflows, a new platform, and a new built-in method for user acquisition, we’re improving Unity dramatically from both a creative and business perspective.”

The release of Unity 5.0 will also see the introduction of Unity Cloud for cross-promotion of mobile games to add developers. Check out some of the newer features in the screenshots below.

Unity Technologies has announced its acquisition of Applified, which handles Everyplay and GameAds, the former allowing players to share replays with each other and the latter to create video ads for monetizing non-paying users. While Everyplay will now be a part of of the Unity dev platform, GameAds will be heading to Unity Cloud.

CEO of Unity Technologies David Helgason stated that, “Unity was founded to democratize game development, and we are incessantly searching for tools that can make our community more successful. By welcoming Everyplay to the Unity platform, we’re arming our developers with an incredibly powerful and authentic way to connect with a rapidly growing community of passionate gamers.”

Applifier CEO Jussi Laakkonen said, “The challenge for today’s developers doesn’t end with releasing awesome games – they also need to attract and retain legions of true fans. We are thrilled to join forces with Unity and, with the help of the incredible Unity community, overcome these important challenges together.”

While it was originally decided to provide the kit only to Microsoft Studios developers, now ID@Xbox developers will have a chance to take advantage of this offer. The only catch is that you must have an existing Unity license. Those who are part of Microsoft’s program will also receive Unity Pro Tools for Xbox One.

The ID@Xbox program was Microsoft’s peace offering to the indie development community after plans for abolishing self-publishing on the Xbox One didn’t pan out. It allows small development teams and even singular individuals to release games on Xbox One, and Microsoft has promised access to features such as Kinect, SmartGlass and much more. The added ability to turn Xbox One retail units into dev kits has only spurred efforts more.

Games developed through the ID@Xbox program will be revealed in early 2014.

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Helgason stated that, “I don’t really think that’s much of a stretch. Improvement of mobile technology is increasing as such a rapid pace that even if they’re not as powerful as PS4 or Xbox One, they’ll certainly be more powerful than the current generation of consoles.”

When asked if he says a day when mobiles become the de facto platform for gaming, and whether we were currently on the second-last, if not last, cycle of consoles, Helgason stated, “The death or end of consoles is greatly exaggerated. There is a lot of money to be found in consoles and gamers commit to making more of an investment in them, which means they’ll continue to purchase games for them.

“However, I think mobile gaming will inspire the next-generation of consoles to be open, less expensive and include fun games from smaller developers. We’re going to start seeing better control solutions, including gamepad controllers for mobile devices, that will certainly push mobile even farther into the realm of consoles as well, especially as mobile games and apps are more easily displayed on big TVs in the living room. I do think it will be some time before the hardcore gamers used to their home console systems will become true believers in mobile.”

With processors such as the Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800 bringing us that much closer, it’s definitely a given that we’ll be seeing more blockbuster titles similar to Deus Ex: The Fall for mobiles. What are your thoughts on mobiles overtaking consoles? Let us know in the comments.

“Because it’s so powerful – it’s actually [laughs] I don’t know which kind of words to put on it – if I say it’s ridiculous it sounds negative, but it’s just an amazing piece of hardware. And the software behind it is actually a big part of that, the software that the engine has to support well to make this good. And so we’re working on that.”

Unity is also working to make sure that the engine will also support Cloud computing and SmartGlass. Given Microsoft’s reversal on its indie publishing, decreeing that independent devs and small studios could now self-publish on Xbox Live for Xbox One, Unity’s support will go a long way towards making the experience better.

One of those improvements includes the ability for all users of the free version to be able to publish to any platform they want for no extra extra. Unity Pro developers can also deploy on Windows Store Pro for free as well.

Other improvements include real-time shadows, albeit hard shadows created from one-directional light only, Open GL ES 3.0 API support, NavMesh baking, optimized and updated Image Effects, support for DirectX 11, cancellation of platform switching, player building and asset importing, support for Android Library Projects, an option to deactivate the audio system in standalone builds and much more.

Some of the features, previously available only in the Pro version, can now be found on the Free version as well. Check it out today for other changes.

Unity Technologies is proud to announce that their developers community has been doubled to two million since last year’s one million milestone.

Here is the official statement in regards to their new milestone success.

“We are proud of this new milestone that we have reached for what it means to the vision to democratize the game industry,” said David Helgason, CEO and Co-founder, Unity Technologies. “In 2005 we started out with a few hundred users and the goal of making game development accessible to everyone across an increasing array of platforms and devices. We continue to dream big and innovate for our developers. We can’t wait to shed more light on our new initiatives and plans at this year’s Unite conference in Vancouver.”

Let us know what you think of Unity Technologies in the comments section down below.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

As of now, Unity on the Xbox One will support Kinect, gaming via a second screen through SmartGlass and of course, Cloud computing. On top of that, developers publishing their games through Microsoft can use Unity without paying any charge. Licensed Unity Pro 4 developers will also benefit from Unity waiving a $1500 license fee thanks to the agreement with Microsoft.

The commercial version of the Unity Add-on for Windows 8 will release this summer, and will support both Windows Store apps and Windows Phone 8 apps.

Unity CEO David Helgason celebrated the measure, stating that, “We were able to make Unity free for the web and for desktop computers a while ago, but have been dreaming of doing the same for mobile for what seems like forever.

“Mobile games development is possibly the most dynamic and exciting industry in the world, and it’s an honour to be able to help so many developers be so successful in fulfilling their visions and in building their businesses.”

Given that the amount of revenue from the mobile games market is only increasing as more and more smaller studios enter into the fray, it will definitely prove advantageous for countries such as India to create high-end games for smartphones and tablets.