Home Gaming Havok Engine sells its soul

Havok Engine sells its soul

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12

Feel the force

This is possibly the oddest deal I have heard about in quite some time.

Apparently Microsoft has offered to purchase the exclusive rights to the awesome Havok engine for eternity… No pathetic till death do us part for Microsoft. They want this engine until the end of the universe itself.

A list of titles that have used the Havok engine reads like the who’s who of AAA gaming.

Assassin’s Creed, Ghost Recon 2, Battlefield Bad Company, Crackdown, Half Life 2, Halo 3, Halo 2 and the list goes on and on and on.

If Microsoft do manage to close this deal it would be, in my humble opinion, a much more important deal than the FFXII one.

Would they licence the engine back out to Sony or just refuse to allow any more non Microsoft titles to use it?

I don’t think any company should have that much control over the general development process otherwise we may not see the Force on a PS3 anytime soon.

Apparently nothing has been finalised yet but a deal of some sort seems to be a done deal.

Source: Destructoid

Last Updated: August 7, 2008

12 Comments

  1. Fred

    August 7, 2008 at 10:52

    What next..? These ‘exclusivity’ deals are starting to become ridiculous , from all sides.
    The gamers are going to lose out in the end.

    Reply

  2. Chevron

    August 7, 2008 at 11:23

    “we may not see the Force on a PS3 anytime soon.”

    Who cares? Who buys a ps3 for gaming reasons anyway.

    LOL.

    Honestly.

    It’s just an engine. Even if M$ do buy it I seriously doubt it’ll it’ll effect titles currently in development as the developers have already licensed the engine.

    Reply

  3. Milesh Bhana

    August 7, 2008 at 11:36

    I think this is a good thing. Having ms own havok means that someone else will have to develop a competing physics engine thus more competition in that space.

    Milesh Bhana’s last blog post..Condemned: Criminal Origins [360]

    Reply

  4. JimBob

    August 7, 2008 at 11:45

    FACT: Microsoft has licensed the engine for perpuity.

    SPECULATION: This could lead to an exclusive deal.

    There is no definite exclusive deal yet!

    Reply

  5. koldFU5iON

    August 7, 2008 at 11:50

    @Chevron: just an engine? who says that! does anyone know what Havok does?

    http://www.havok.com/content/view/72/57/

    Havok is the reason that games look better today, it’s the reason why games like Battlefield: Bad Company can blow up buildings and then hide behind particles, it’s the reason altair has a cape that flows in the wind, it’s the reason why objects know that if it falls it will fall at this speed and if it happens to hit a cushion it will have a soft landing, all your character animations the little movements that seem “natural” it’s the reason we turn around and say “hey that was pretty cool” Havok isn’t just an engine it’s the ENGINE!

    @Milesh: I thought of this too but Havok been around for EVER, and there’s probably a very good reason why people don’t use any other engine. and to simply create an engine from scratch could seriously hurt development time.

    Reply

  6. scotty777

    August 7, 2008 at 12:08

    this could turn nasty. I mean, physics seems to be a really big thing and if M$ decide F-U Competition, and don’t let ANY game that will come out on a sony OR Nintendo platform use havoc then we might see this getting nasty. But wait, won’t this have a ripple effect? I mean, if M$ decides to not license the engine to dev’s for Sony etc then can’t Sony sue them?

    But I think this might lead to more development in Physics as now there’s a massive company supporting is.

    Sadly, i think M$ is getting greedy now and might end up burning their fingers.

    Reply

  7. Vamp

    August 7, 2008 at 12:35

    That’s business for you. If you’ve got the money, use it!
    Exclusivity deals will always be there, in one form or another, as long as there are more than one console fighting for the ultimate prize. You have to nail the competition no matter what or else you’re going to get left in the dust.
    As long as they use it to make good games, i couldn’t care less.

    Reply

  8. JimBob

    August 7, 2008 at 13:24

  9. Nick

    August 8, 2008 at 00:52

    Exactly what I was thinking. This would be a good thing at the end of the day because of competition.

    Reply

  10. doobiwan

    August 8, 2008 at 09:48

    I was going to say…

    There is nothing exclusive about the agreement, it’s just an enterprise wide license for Microsoft to use it and does not preclude Sony, Nintendo or even LeapFrog from licensing it as well.

    Reply

  11. xyber

    August 8, 2008 at 11:13

    Strange article cause Havok is owned by Intel now and they won’t do a deal like that. http://tryhavok.intel.com/
    http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070914corp.htm

    Anycase,, I think that article was ripped out of perspective, far as I can tell (from original article here http://www.developmag.com/news/30297/Havok-signs-perpetual-licensing-deal-with-Microsoft-Game-Studios) is that MS payed so that they and their development partners can use it and some developer partner who don’t want to dish out the money don’t have an excuse not to be using it.

    Reply

  12. xyber

    August 8, 2008 at 11:15

    ugh. .can’t edit posts? Ancyase.. I see doobiwan said it allready :p Btw, you guys should do better research before posting these articles.

    Reply

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