@gri:
I wouldn't compare Unity Indie with A7 Com. Unity lacks anything in that area as it's either Indie or Pro and to my mind it doesn't really need anything inbetween. When now comparing both Unity's free version and the free 3DGS version Unity clearly wins. When comparing Unity Pro and 3DGS Pro Unity wins even more clearly. It may be 200 € more expensive but gives you more advanced features and in case of the upcoming 3.0 even saves you 130000$ per title if you'd want to use the same technology. As it was said before this really is a no-brainer...

So you're right - Unity doesn't have a good offer in the very low budget area (at least not if you must have good dynamic shadows no matter what - if that's not so important for your project Unity Indie becomes extremely attractive again). So maybe it's not the best idea for pupils with next to no money. At the same time one might think of trying to apply for an educational version in that case. I don't know when or for what prices you can get Unity then but I guess asking them won't hurt...

First official statement from Conitec:

http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=314815&gonew=1#UNREAD

Na..Na..Na..! Net so frech!

is there anywhere a date mentioned when the preorder pricing ends??

I agree with you. I am also convinced that the iPhone market is overcrowded and only high quality will survive now.

But did you realize that Unity already announced support for Android mobile phones? That is a quite new market and will get some small indies some good money, I am sure.

And this also shows how fast and innovative the Unity team is. So I think investing there is a good future investment. It probably will not be outdated anytime soon.

But I also understand that students might not have enough money to enjoy the pro edition. And they want of course all these shiny features.
But then it might be more interesting to check Ogre or Irrlicht to have a nice renderer for free.

And then there is still C4 for $350 with everything in (supporting 3 platforms). And there is Shiva supporting even more platforms.
And there is even the FPS Creator as a drag&drop tool.

It looks like there is something at the market for everybody, including lots of shaders, render-to-texture and real-time shadows.

Yes, Unity Free lacks render-to-texture so Gamestudio Commercial has an advantage if this feature is important to you but Gamestudio doesn't come with good dynamic shadows in any edition. Like has been discussed in this thread already they theoretically could be added by yourself but it still seems like nobody has been able to achieve that. All attempts so far are missing something.

@ello: Preorder pricing will end the day Unity 3.0 gets released.

@Pappenheimer: Object oriented programming isn't very hard to learn if you use an easier language than C++ for learning it and like Captain_Kiyaku has mentioned it isn't really necessary to know much about it for programming with Unity.

WTF, i wasn't sure if i should write that i dont want to hear exactly that worthless answer.

What do you want to hear then? The exact release date I guess?

i think you do know what i mean.. one month or one week?? (so, just if there is a rough estimation)

Someone told me, the release is announced to happen around summer 2010.