Microsoft has purchased the gaming physics engine and toolset company Havok, previously owned by Intel, for an undisclosed amount.
You’ve probably seen their logo in front of damn near every game you’ve played in the last decade. Havok is a company that builds physics engine toolsets for 3D games. Which means they’re popular – building your own physics engine is an ordeal.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they had purchased the company from Intel, its owners since 2007, without disclosing the details of the deal.
“As we welcome Havok to the Microsoft family, we will continue to work with developers to create great gaming experiences, and continue to license Havok’s development tools to partners,” the company said in a statement. “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.”
The interesting detail of Microsoft purchasing Havok is, of course, that Havok has very much been a platform-agnostic company in the past. While the engine has given absurd ragdoll physics well over 600 games including Microsoft staples like Halo and Crackdown, it has also run for multiple games on Sony and Nintendo consoles, including Sony‘s flagship Uncharted franchise.
Microsoft sees this purchase as part of a greater move toward development innovation. “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.'”
Havok was founded in 1998, and also develops the Vision game engine.
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[toggle title=”Press Release: Havok to join Microsoft”]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 gaming experiences, and continue to license Havok’s development tools to 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. Havok is an amazing technology supplier in the games industry and the leading real-time physics creator. We saw an opportunity to acquire Havok to deliver great experiences for our fans. Throughout the company’s history, they’ve partnered with Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and many others to create more than 600 games including Halo, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Destiny, Dark Souls and The Elder Scrolls. Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world. 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.” Havok shares Microsoft’s vision for empowering people to create worlds and experiences that have never been seen before, and we look forward to sharing more of this vision in the near future.[/toggle]
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