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[Dictator93]

I'm sure now that they own it they can make it work better with Havok going forward.

That could be a thing I guess. I am not sure if there is any precedent for that before though.. it would be interesting.

 

[yogloo]

Why did intel sell it?

 

[mdtauk]

So as Microsoft is prepping Havok for future consoles, does that mean they will get information and early access to the Nintendo NX?

 

[Condom]

Amazing acquisition of Microsoft

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

Game developers use Windows. Time for Sony to make their own OS. /s

 

[tattooed_dwarf]

Accept they won't deny it to Sony. This is a company that makes money off of every android phone sold. They make software for Mac, etc etc etc. They've actually been moving closer and closer to platform agnosticism since satya took over. There isn't a chance in hell they'll turn down a licensing deal, just like there isn't a chance in hell they wouldn't support minecraft out on every possible platform. That's almost always been MSs MO throughout there history (other than some of the late balmer years)

Did you really think I meant that they would deny it? Because I said exact opposite. I already knew and agree on your points 100%.

 

[IncognitoPanda]

I die a little inside every time I hear someone who thinks that MS is in the business of making life hard for Sony instead of making money.

 

[Carn82]

Let's hope Havok will be able to improve on their current portfolio, and not become some Hololense-focused aquisition.

 

[Machina]

This won't change much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[GameWhisperer]

I die a little inside every time I hear someone who thinks that MS is in the business of making life hard for Sony instead of making money.

It's clear very few people really understand business.

 

[tattooed_dwarf]

I die a little inside every time I hear someone who thinks that MS is in the business of making life hard for Sony instead of making money.

Console warz, mate!

 

[Hockeymac18]

I die a little inside every time I hear someone who thinks that MS is in the business of making life hard for Sony instead of making money.

But...TEH WARZ!

edit: Damn tattoed_dwarf...

 

[GravityInsanity]

Some of the latest posts in here...

 

[barit]

Holy shit. What does this mean for the industry ? HL3 exclusive on Xbox ? Just kidding

 

[dragonbane]

However I'm not sure Sony is going to want to give their competitor any more money then they have to. So if they want to avoid paying Microsoft a fee, what's their best bet?

I can assure you Sony wont think about this for even 1 second, especially since the devs handle this themselves and they have much better things to do.

The real issue will be one of early development access. If Havok was still owned by Intel, Sony would send very early PS5 dev kits to Havok to ensure Havok was ready to go Day 1 of next gen PS5 console launch. With Havok being owned by Microsoft, Sony will have to be more careful about providing early dev kits to Havok/Microsoft that could reveal too much competitive information too soon.

This is a kinda interesting point actually. But since there is usually almost a year between announcement and release I assume they would just send it to them post announcement or close to it. Would still give them enough time and only impact launch games at best.

 

[GreyOcelot]

Did you really think I meant that they would deny it? Because I said exact opposite. I already knew and agree on your points 100%.

Ahh ok, sorry. Well the point still stands for others that disagree

 

[Carn82]

The issue for Sony and Nintendo will not be licensing. Microsoft will continue to license Havok to existing parties.

They're probably contractually obliged to support / license current & near future deals anyways.

 

[Carn82]

The real issue will be one of early development access. If Havok was still owned by Intel, Sony would send very early PS5 dev kits to Havok to ensure Havok was ready to go Day 1 of next gen PS5 console launch. With Havok being owned by Microsoft, Sony will have to be more careful about providing early dev kits to Havok/Microsoft that could reveal too much competitive information too soon.

My guess is that they will not be a priority 'development partner' anymore. Havok had some input regarding the PS4 development. If you remember the 'blue bouncing balls' techdemo during Cerny's PS4 unveil; that was made by Havok.

 

[Klocker]

Okay, so, Microsoft owns Havok now, and nVidia owns PhyX. Is Sony going to have to make their own physics engines for every game now, or is there another engine out there I don't know about?

Pardon if somebody asked/answered this already.

PS: I don't doubt that Microsoft will let Sony use the engine if they pay the licensing fee. However I'm not sure Sony is going to want to give their competitor any more money then they have to. So if they want to avoid paying Microsoft a fee, what's their best bet?

Large Companies don't think like that. They have no problem giving license fees to competitors they all do it all the time. there becomes a tipping point where it makes sense to own the license outright (like this investment)

intellectual property sharing is the norm.

Now smaller independent devs who have an emotional axe to grind? Maybe they will pout and do something else

 

[naitosan]

Whoa that's huge. What excites me is Havok + Azure. We might start seeing some impressive physics going on like Crackdown 3 down the road.

I doubt Microsoft will block Sony from using Havok, it's what I'm worried if Sony will feel comfortable licensing Havok and or Azure for their games in the future.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Is this good for MS? Yes. Good for the industry? I'd say not. In terms of competitiveness, corporations just buying the underpinnings of essential development tools everyone uses is BS.

If Sony all of a sudden bought Unreal Engine i'd be just as pissed off. Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

 

[Percy]

Seems an odd acquisition but okay?

I die a little inside every time I hear someone who thinks that MS is in the business of making life hard for Sony instead of making money.

Well, they kinda set up that perception themselves with some of their stunts and PR last gen, but yeah... Sony and their business relations re: Havoc have fuck all to do with anything here.

 

[Nzyme32]

Holy shit. What does this mean for the industry ? HL3 exclusive on Xbox ? Just kidding

HL3, if a Source 2 game, would use their own physics engine supposedly called Rubikon, which has nothing to do with Havok. Source's Physics engine was derived from Havok though, but that was in like 2004

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

They can do both. How would you call what Cloudgine's working on?

 

[Croatoan]

Lol, microsoft PR can start claiming almost every game across all systems that sell are at least, partially, made possible by them. (except for those with custom physics )

Journalist dude: "So Microsoft, how do you feel about the success of Uncharted 4?"
Microsoft: "We are super happy with how well Uncharted 4 has performed using our Havok technology. Naughty Dog is one of our best clients, our relationship with them is awesome."

 

[fenners]

i did not know that. You know what physics engine GTA IV use? i though "euphoria" was the physics engine and "morpheme" the procedural animation solution which integrates into the physics.

I believe the GTA engine uses its own proprietary one, but I could be wrong.

Euphoria's the procedural animation simulation system, used by Force Unleashed & GTA etc.

Morpheme's the traditional animation graph system with canned animations etc using a graph to drive the choice & blend.

 

[EBE]

love the thread title change

 

[Inuhanyou]

They can do both. How would you call what Cloudgine's working on?

Exception to the rules.

DX was the same way, but it matters little at this stage

 

[Auto-Reply]

Isn't Half Life 2 using Havok? Will it still come out? Is Steam doomed now?

 

[kadotsu]

My hope is that MS may allow developers to exclude the splashscreen removing at least some of the boot-up bloat.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Is this good for MS? Yes. Good for the industry? I'd say not. In terms of competitiveness, corporations just buying the underpinnings of essential development tools everyone uses is BS.

If Sony all of a sudden bought Unreal Engine i'd be just as pissed off. Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

Unless... this changes nothing, and MS continues to license out Havok exactly as Intel did before them, and the big reason they bought it was to associate their cloud-based physics compute with a respected brand...

But no, it couldn't be that simple.

 

[VincentMatts]

Next gen Xbox:

Xbox Havok

edit: Honestly, all this tells me is that this is MS being MS, but as it was when they started. Theyre showing up at Apple events as developers, they're licensing out Minecraft to other consoles and platforms just as it was before they bought them, etc. This shows me more of the general direction they seem to be going in and i like it.

 

[Kayant]

Is this good for MS? Yes. Good for the industry? I'd say not. In terms of competitiveness, corporations just buying the underpinnings of essential development tools everyone uses is BS.

If Sony all of a sudden bought Unreal Engine i'd be just as pissed off. Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

Given literally nothing is changing from this expect more/easier integration into their tools I can't see anything wrong here. This is no real negatives(so far) with this deal.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

I assume this means hardware acceleration for Havoc in the next MS console.

 

[Alo0oy]

I don't why are people assuming things for no reason, MS won't stop licensing havok to Sony & Nintendo, those companies pay each other for many things.

Sony pays MS for Windows & other software solutions for all of their game & movie studios, Microsoft pays Sony for every Blu Ray drive or Blu Ray disc sold, Nintendo pays MS for some of their software solutions, Apple pays Sony for their cameras, Sony pays Google for using Android....etc.

This isn't anything new.

I'm not even sure they're allowed to not license these things, wouldn't that fall under anti-trust laws? Or does that only apply to patents?

 

[Nzyme32]

Isn't Half Life 2 using Havok? Will it still come out? Is Steam doomed now?

Source engine's physics engine is derived from Havok. For Source 2 they now have their own physics engine called Rubikon - but they haven't demonstrated anything yet.

As for HL2, it's been out a little while

As for Steam, it was doomed from the start. Steamed even

 

[Iced Arcade]

Wow that was unexpected and huge. Wow

 

[Erimriv]

Next gen Xbox:

Xbox Havok

Great name for the next Xbox, take note Phil.

 

[Doukou]

Microsoft is wrecking havoc

 

[Compsiox]

Great name for the next Xbox, take note Phil.

That is actually very good

 

[jelly]

Havok and The Coalition have a similar logo.

 

[Caja 117]

Okay I'm updating the OP again since people seem confused as to what Havok is (and isn't).

As a note, here's a list of their products:

People who use the Euphoria animation system might still use Havok Destruction or Havok AI for example.

DICE and Naughty Dog use Havok Destruction for example, whereas Pro Evo uses Havok Cloth.

How does that work? You mean that a game can have One enginne doing the cloth physics, whereas another totally different engine doing the Physics in the game? inst this makes it harder to work with and develop, than just using the same engine for everything?

 

[Naminator]

First they came for Minecraft.
Then they came for Havoc.
Then.......

 

[Naminator]

How does that work? You mean that a game can have One enginne doing the cloth physics, whereas another totally different engine doing the Physics in the game? inst this makes it harder to work with and develop, than just using the same engine for everything?

Do you find it hard to use a fork AND a knife when you eat?

edit: sorry for the double post.

 

[SmartWaffles]

How does that work? You mean that a game can have One enginne doing the cloth physics, whereas another totally different engine doing the Physics in the game? inst this makes it harder to work with and develop, than just using the same engine for everything?

Havok is a physics framework/middleware that can work with a lot of engines.

 

[Cornbread78]

Is this good for MS? Yes. Good for the industry? I'd say not. In terms of competitiveness, corporations just buying the underpinnings of essential development tools everyone uses is BS.

If Sony all of a sudden bought Unreal Engine i'd be just as pissed off. Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

Makes you really think hard on if this will have a negative impact on the industry, or hopefully, no impact at all.

 

[Black Republican]

Interesting acquisition. They'd be creaming money off most games released.

Why do I feel this is the first of some big acquisitions for MS isn't their event next week...

MS buys insomniac after ratchet ps4

 

[Caja 117]

Do you find it hard to use a fork AND a knife when you eat?

Software development (part of what a Graduated from college) is far more complex than using a knife and fork , but thanks for your cynical remark.

 

[Mysterious]

Okay, so, Microsoft owns Havok now, and nVidia owns PhyX. Is Sony going to have to make their own physics engines for every game now, or is there another engine out there I don't know about?

Pardon if somebody asked/answered this already.

PS: I don't doubt that Microsoft will let Sony use the engine if they pay the licensing fee. However I'm not sure Sony is going to want to give their competitor any more money then they have to. So if they want to avoid paying Microsoft a fee, what's their best bet?

Did you know that Sony made computers (at one point) that ran Windows?!
Did you know that Sony makes video editing software Sony Vegas for Windows?!

 

[CosmicQueso]

Is this good for MS? Yes. Good for the industry? I'd say not. In terms of competitiveness, corporations just buying the underpinnings of essential development tools everyone uses is BS.

If Sony all of a sudden bought Unreal Engine i'd be just as pissed off. Of course par the course when we have so many powerful interests more interested with things like patent wars than actual R&D into their own technologies for consumers

Yeah, that small, scrappy, independent start up company Intel owned Havok since 2007. Now that a behemoth like M$ owns them, it's truly a dark day for the industry.