Monday, October 5th 2015
Microsoft Acquires Havok Physics from Intel
Microsoft acquired Havok Physics, the industry's most popular in-game physics API, from Intel. Microsoft intends to add Havok's IP to its existing tools and platforms, including DirectX 12, Visual Studio, and Azure. Havok will continue to remain accessible to all its existing licensees and partners, including Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Sony. It currently features in more than 600 AAA game titles across major platforms, such as the PC, PlayStation, Wii, and Xbox.
Source:
Microsoft
38 Comments on Microsoft Acquires Havok Physics from Intel
Then Intel bought them and that was dead.
Remember those rumors for not so long ago that Microsoft was about to buy AMD? And Microsoft buys their old partner.
Ipso Facto, MICROSOFT IS BUYING AMD TO BECOME A GPU MAKER!
Microsoft Rage Fury MAXX 128 Extreme Pro XL incoming.
MICROSOFT Rage Fury MAXX Professional Edition.....MICROSOFT Rage Fury Nano Home Edition....MICROSOFT FirePro Office 365....
Maybe they'll charge you 10% less if you opt for the OEM version. Hopefully they don't tie Windows reactivation/reinstall with the original hardware.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft
All speculation at this point. All I know is that this could (if Microsoft does something instead of just sitting on Havok like Intel did) really shakes up the market.
What's next!? To acquire Google!? :shadedshu:
nVidia BOUGHT a company that created PhysX and changed its code not to run on competitor's product, effectively, to leverage market position to ban competitor.
"time and effort" my arse.
Some "time and effort" was put into gsync, and that was MOSTLY about how to have something that AMD could not use. Luckily, FreeSync is a cheap (included in all popular upscaler chips = can be had "for free") yet superior (slight performance increase vs decrease in nvidias, no limitations like "only one port" etc) alternative. Oh, and FreeSync is loyalty free and open to use by anyone.
On the other hand, pumping up DirectX and including physics engine could help with getting rid of anti-compettive PhysX dependency.
So I'd sure welcome that.
So yeah, I would be pleased by the death of Phys-X because of this move.
Yes they actually put in time and effort because they did marketing for it which needs a lot of money and they also brought it to developers who impemented it into games for the players (for only those who had nvidia cards indeed, but this is how the market works, you see the same shit happening with airplanes, cars, and pretty much everything).
Physx was always an utter shit and if you ask me it's still the same (even Flex is far from convincing in my book tbh), but at least we -who had an Nvidia hardware - had something, and it was good to have something instead of nothing. I understand if somebody says that they don't want to buy Nvidia products because of this and that, but nobody forces them to do so, it's simply an option... if you like that they offer physx, gsync, 3d vision, sli, shadowplay, gameworks, Nvlink, cuda, whatever...etc... you buy from them and if you don't like those you buy something else. End of story.