Havok acquired by Microsoft

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Today, we are proud to announce that Microsoft has acquired Havok, the leading provider of 3D physics, from Intel.

As we welcome Havok to the Microsoft family, we will continue to work with developers to create great games experiences, and continue to license Havok’s development tools to third party partners. We believe that Havok is a fantastic addition to Microsoft’s existing tools and platform components for developers, including DirectX 12, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Azure.

http://www.havok.com/havok-to-join-microsoft/
 
I wonder how this will effect multiplatform games?
 
Smart move by MS , leverage azure for xbox one and pc games while still liscencing it out for other platforms.

It could certainly help with the graphics disparity
 
Good point eastmen, it could definitely be interesting to see if Microsoft manages to implement cloud calculations into the Havoc physics engine.
 
Wonder if this will motivate competitors releasing games to move to other solutions, or if they'll just shrug and move on.
 
milk said:
Wonder if this will motivate competitors releasing games to move to other solutions, or if they'll just shrug and move on.
Click to expand...

Uhm, competitors? What competitors are out there in the physics middle-ware market? Nvidia's PhysX which likely wont be a good match for all existing current-gen consoles?

Or do you mean Sony game developers? If so, just where exactly would they turn to? They likely don't have the required amount of time to design and develop their own physics implementation. If they did, they wouldn't have been using the middle-ware tools of Havok to begin with.
 
BRiT said:
Uhm, competitors? What competitors are out there in the physics middle-ware market? Nvidia's PhysX which likely wont be a good match for all existing current-gen consoles?

Or do you mean Sony game developers? If so, just where exactly would they turn to? They likely don't have the required amount of time to design and develop their own physics implementation. If they did, they wouldn't have been using the middle-ware tools of Havok to begin with.
Click to expand...
Bullet Physics Library author worked at Sony from 2003 until 2010. There was an optimized version for Cell. PhyreEngine supports it.
I think Sony tech demos and Playroom uses it.
 
Nice, now owned by a company that is hardware agnostic with no need to push a vendor specific GPU agenda (Nvidia) or a CPU centric approach (Intel). And a company with a vested interest in active development on it.

5-10 years ago, there'd be some valid worries about whether it would become closed platform, but Microsoft lately seems to be a lot more open to providing software on competing platforms.

Regards,
SB
 
What MS is going to buy AMD , then MS is going to make special Havok features for AMD hardware and Azure !
 
Seems that MS sees Havok as having larger implications outside the gaming space.

The concept of physics middleware and their cloud based services they offer today could very well be an indication of such. This could round out nicely with their current offerings of azure machine learning, and power BI.

It may also be a critical service to Hololens applications.
 
Yup, in IRC we were saying how well Minecraft with Havok physics and Azure could work with Hololens. So that's at least a few of us thinking along the same synergy lines. Now who knows if that's what MS was thinking.

Does anyone know if this was done using more foreign cash like the Minecraft deal? I thought Havok was an Irish company but then they became a part of Intel.
 
BRiT said:
Does anyone know if this was done using more foreign cash like the Minecraft deal? I thought Havok was an Irish company but then they became a part of Intel.
Click to expand...

They were when Intel acquired them, and AFAIK, they are still based in Ireland.

Although I'm not sure exactly how this would work out. Both Microsoft and Intel are based in the US. So would it be considered a US transaction because of that? Or would it be considered an international transaction since the subsidiary is based in Ireland? I believe, the latter is the case, but I'm not entirely certain on that.

Regards,
SB
 
BRiT said:
Or do you mean Sony game developers? If so, just where exactly would they turn to? They likely don't have the required amount of time to design and develop their own physics implementation. If they did, they wouldn't have been using the middle-ware tools of Havok to begin with.
Click to expand...

That's what I was wondering. I don't know how many studios use havok, but I'm sure many do. It does take time and money to develop your own physics software, or even to migrate to another one, but if sony higher-ups ask their studios to try and go that direction, that's the incentive to justify the cost right there. What I wonder is, just how much Sony cares about leting MS get more money out of playstation exclusive games. My guess is pretty much not at all, but who knows. They probably use a lot of MS software in their development process anyways.
 
milk said:
That's what I was wondering. I don't know how many studios use havok, but I'm sure many do. It does take time and money to develop your own physics software, or even to migrate to another one, but if sony higher-ups ask their studios to try and go that direction, that's the incentive to justify the cost right there. What I wonder is, just how much Sony cares about leting MS get more money out of playstation exclusive games. My guess is pretty much not at all, but who knows. They probably use a lot of MS software in their development process anyways.
Click to expand...
Microsoft's acquisition of Havok does not change anything for Sony and other parties.

But as I said they could evolve Bullet Physics Library which they already use.
 
I believe even NaughtyDog uses Havok on their games.

Where does Sony use Bullet Physics on PS4 titles?

I don't see any Sony games listed on Wiki page other than their online MMO, Free Realms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_(software):
Commercial games
Games using Bullet created by professional game developers for video game consoles or other platforms include:

Click to expand...
 
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