Coghlan; "Havok Microsoft deal does not affect Sony"

From PS3 Attitude: "After some reports that Sony may lose the latest versions of the Havok middleware engine, due to a new agreement with Microsoft, we spoke to David Coghlan at Havok about the claims.

David is Havok's Vice President of Development and he was more than happy to squash the rumours that their deal with Microsoft would harm Sony or the PS3 platform in any way..."

[Silogon]

That website looks about as credible as a check cashing/car title loan place. No thanks.

[DolphGB]

...but regardless, we just spoke with David (we know Havok after having featured the first videos of their Cloth and Destruction modules last year) and that quote is genuine.

Most people at N4G know PS3 Attitude - do a search for us and check out the long list of factual news we report daily.

[Mr_Potato_]

Still much more credible than the 1000s of websites bought by Microsoft to tell crap like "MGS4 is coming" or "Havok will be MS only".

Stop being a fanboy, Silogon, just be a gamer.

[SL1M DADDY]

Nothing wrong with the site. Their information is very credible and this is just a good bit of relief from the fanboy stuff hitting the web about Sony losing Havok.

[Real Gambler]

So you think that if people make a game engine, it would also make sense to license it exclusively to one business? No matter if it's Unreal, Havok, Crysis, the more people use their game engines, the more money they make. Buying a license to use an engine will not give you exclusivity, it will only give your the right to use the engine in your games. Microsoft would have to buy the company to get get exclusivity. But they won't because it would only give them exclusive access to ONE engine while tons are currently available for Nintendo and Sony. Not good business sense. And they would likely have to concentrate on this engine for all their future games. Trust me, Gears will still use Unreal, even if they would buy Havok...

[titntin]

Perfectly credible source.

...and a no brainer. Anyone who who tried to infer any differently from a simple licensing agreement, was obviously delusional at best, or just plain 'troll baiting for hits' at worst.

[thereapersson]

They will jump over any opportunity to bash another system, even if it means twisting obvious fact into some other fallacy to suit their needs

[green]

I am no professional but from all i gather it just means that the Havok engine will be included in the dev kits of 360's, which in turn will reduce game development cost's because you don't have to start obtaining a separate license and tool kit's from havok.

But if your making a multiplat 360/PS3 game, then you would have to get the license and tool kits from Havok for the PS3 version, further increasing the difference in dev costs between the PS3 and 360 when havok utilization is concerned.

EDIT: This might not matter to big publishers like EA and Ubisoft since they have their own licensing agreement with Havok, but will make a difference to the smaller studios.

N4G professionals feel free to correct me if i am wrong.

[Bolts]

That makes perfect sense.

[Ashta]

Considering that Havok's tools are free (at least the binary is) I don't know exactly how much more obtaining a license would actually cost for a PS3 dev kit, but I'm sure that if Microsoft has sought a deal with Havok to cut out the red-tape nonsense then I expect Sony to start filing for a similar agreement as well.

[Captain Tuttle]

Good post...makes sense.

[fire23]

Yup that is exactly what they are doing. I am really suprised that they had not done it along time ago. Nowadays everything is sub licensed. For example both Sony has Havok in their dev kit already and 3rd party engines like Unreal or Cry Engine 2 have a physics engine in it.

[coolfool]

Yes Havok is a good engine, yes it is used by many games but is it the be all an end all of physics? Hardly. Say havok was wiped off the planet now, I'd wager that other companies would replace it fairly quickly and fairly competently. And it is just an engine after all, it doesn't mean great games just because developers use it. It is the creative use of engines that really makes the difference.

Anyway I feel like I am kind of stating the obvious. In my mind there is no way that Havok would be anything other than multi-platform. Think of how much they would limit their customer base by if they were.

[qwertyuiopasdfghjkl]

.

[Sitdown]

I wonder who these people are that was thinking it would affect Sony.......and why not include Nintendo as well? I tell you...everything has to be twisted and turned.

[zag]

not a major loss due to there being 2 othe engines.

also havok isn't the best one out there.

[Raoh]

makes sense. it just means you can get the engine unlicensed for its basic functions.

or you can lease the license to be able to rewrite/manipulate code that its not an available feature in the free version.

[outlawlife]

exactly what i said in the other havok thread and people disagreed with me

the sony faithful just run and cry "microsoft buys everything!!!" or "it doesn't matter sony is so superior they don't even use havok they write their own physics engine for every game!"

when in fact they have no idea whats going on

the blind fanboyism on this site astonishes me, especially when it comes down to the middleware and tools that 90% of these kids have never touched ad have no idea what is actually does

all this does is makes havok easily accessible to ms devs without them going out and incurring the cost on their own...it makes having a good physics starting point very easy

[hunter21]

yup well said mate.

[titntin]

Ho ho!
Moaning about fanboyism whilst posting:
"the sony faithful just run and cry "microsoft buys everything!!!" or "it doesn't matter sony is so superior they don't even use havok they write their own physics engine for every game!"

You might want to look up 'irony'!
Come to think of it, you might also want to look up 'punctuation'.

...and yes, I'm three times the age of most of these kids, and yes, I've used this middle ware, along with many other interesting middle ware tools for many years. There's several developers in here hidden among the kids, so don't go thinking your the only one with some kind of perspective!

[outlawlife]

there isn't some type of hidden irony in my post

i was reflecting the fact that you can't read an xbox story on here without 10 different guys coming in to tout the virtues of ps3, or saying "RROD FTW!!"

the sony statements are paraphrased from guys in the first havok thread...they didn't come from me, that is why they are in quotes

i believe you should own what you own and enjoy it for what it is, you don't need to think that whatever you own is better just because you own it. adopting some ridiculous "death to company x" allegiance/attitude toward a consumer electronic device is foolish

i don't feel it is necessary or productive in anyway

not really sure why you are responding negatively to me when we agree, but to each his own

i didn't say i was the only one who had some perspective either, there are some rather credible and good minded people hidden around here just like any other site like this

kind of akin to to musicians on blabbermouth.net

as for punctuation...it is n4g...it isn't important haha

[titntin]

Fair enough!
I mistook your quoting for a hidden agenda. You had the decency to put me right and not be offended in doing so - kudos to you!

[Mr_Luke]

Oh, M$ is giving cash around again? ;P where's the news?
Said it in a joking way... or not. Who can say that M$ DOESN'T buy everything? Probably someone not in the PC/software world maybe. Since ever, fanboysm or not.

[Mr_Potato_]

Yet another stupid Xbot RROD rumor crushed.

And no, MGS 4 won't come to 360.