Microsoft

Microsoft Acquires Havok, Bad News for PS4?

Over on their blog Microsoft had this to say “we are proud to announce that Microsoft has acquired Havok, the leading provider of 3D physics, from Intel.” If you’ve being playing games for a long time now the Havok symbol is probably something you’ve become quite familiar with, in fact on their blog Microsoft mentioned it was used to create “more than 600 games.” Is this bad news for the likes of Sony? It’s obviously not great, but on the bright side Microsoft will allow other companies to use the technology, for a fee. This means Sony will be able to continue using Havok on upcoming titles such as Uncharted 4 and Horizon, the bad news is they’ll have to pay Microsoft to use the technology.

havok

What does this mean for the future of PlayStation? More than likely they will continue to use Havok and pay Microsoft the fee they would have being paying to Intel regardless of the purchase. However it is possible that Sony won’t be happy using Microsoft’s technology and will switch to another 3D physics engine owned by a different company, or maybe even develop their own. Only time will tell, but for the time being you can expect to see the Havok symbol popping up in Sony titles for the next few years.

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