Microsoft buys Havok physics engine from Intel

[ #Microsoft #intel #Havok #game ]Microsoft has bought Irish physics firm Havok from Intel, for an undisclosed amount, but the buyout price is likely higher than what Intel allegedly paid for Havok, which was $110 million in 2007. Havok, which licenses its technology to nearly every game maker under the sun, is known best for helping power the realistic motion of bodies, bullets, and vehicles in franchises like Halo and Call of Duty. Havok is also known for powering movie special effects for films like The Matrix and Troy.

Intel bought Havok in 2007, and Microsoft has now acquired it from the chip maker with plans to integrate the physics engine tech into the existing Windows and Xbox game developer toolsets. Those include the Direct X12 suite of game programming APIs, the VisualStudio app development kit, and Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, which most recently was shown powering a stunning real-time destructive environment in the upcoming crime game Crackdown 3.

As part of the acquisition, Microsoft has agreed to continue licensing Havok to third-parties and competitors, which could be important to the continued success of the middleware engine. Havok has long had a reputation for running on just about every platform known to man, from game consoles to PCs and even smartphones. Microsoft also notes that “We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners. Part of this innovation will include building the most complete cloud service, which we’ve just started to show through games like Crackdown 3.”

Check out some video showing what Havok can do!


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