Microsoft may have let Sony steal the indie crown in the early days of the coming generation of consoles, but they are making big strides to undo the damage and make the Xbox One a home for indie developers. The latest news in the ID@Xbox program is full support for the games development engine Unity. Upon its release in early 2014, the Xbox One add-on for Unity will be available to all developers in the ID@Xbox program at no cost. There will also be a special Xbox One-only Unity Pro seat licenses for Xbox One developers in the ID@Xbox program.

“We talked internally at ID@Xbox about ways we could help developers for Xbox One. Many developers we talk to are using Unity today to get up and running quickly, and to be able to harness the power of hardware and realize their creative visions without spending tons of time on technology development. We thought about paying for some developers’ Unity licenses but the more we talked about it, the more we felt paying for some developers’ licenses and not others just didn’t feel right.

To us, ID@Xbox is about providing a level playing field for all developers.”

“As always, our goal at ID@Xbox and Microsoft remains the same: We want to lower friction for developers on Microsoft platforms to make sure gamers get access to the broadest and deepest library of amazing games on the planet.”

Noble goal Microsoft but just think were you’d be now if you’d shown this level of support for the indie community for the get go. As it stands the Xbox One will have very little in the way of indie content when it launches later this month. Still, better late than never and I for one am looking forward to seeing the Xbox One’s indie offerings in 2014. Now patch things up with Oddworld Inhabitants so we can get New ‘n’ Tasty on the Xbox One.

Let us know what you think of this latest move by Microsoft in the comments below.