Microsoft has bought SyntaxTree, the developers of the UnityVS plug-in for Visual Studio, for an undisclosed price. UnityVS enables developers using the cross platform game engine, Unity, to write and debug their Unity programs directly within Visual Studio, and judging by the logos on its homepage, the plug-in is popular in the gaming industry, with Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Valve, and many others listed. The plug-in, formerly costing $99 for small teams, $249 for larger ones, will soon be made freely available from Microsoft. What’s notable here isn’t the purchase per se, but what Microsoft is doing with Visual Studio. Since last year, Redmond has been cross-promoting Xamarin, the development environment that lets developers write apps for Android, iOS, OS X, Windows Store, …

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Microsoft wants Visual Studio to be your one-stop cross-platform dev shop