Via Intel: "Intel Corporation today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok Inc., the leading provider of interactive software and services used by digital media creators in the game and movie industries. Havok will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel.

The acquisition will enable developers in the digital animation and game communities to take advantage of Intel's innovation and technology leadership in the creation of digital media.

"Havok is a proven leader in physics technology for gaming and digital content, and will become a key element of Intel's visual computing and graphics efforts," said Renee J. James, vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group. "Havok will operate its business as usual, which will allow them to continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry."


This acquisition has potentially huge implications on the future of in-game physics. With Intel's recent overwhelming penetration in the gaming space, Havok's presence now has a platform on which to grow exponentially. The move is also significant because Havok works closely with both NVIDIA and ATI as those companies prepare their GPGPU physics solutions.

One has to consider whether or not Intel's recently announced foray into the discrete graphics world has anything to do with this acquisition. It is also possible, though considerably more unlikely, that Intel will incorporate Physics SIMD Extensions on their upcoming or future processors. Such a move would in spirit mimic AMD/ATI's long announced Fusion initiative, which aims to marry the GPU and CPU together in a sort of uber gaming/multimedia processor.

Havok's software physics technology is used in some of the most widely-played games in the competitive scene today, including Half-Life 2 and Halo 2, as well as non-competitive games like the enormously popular Bioshock. In addition to games, Havok's technology is seamlessly integrated into Autodesk's 3DStudio MAX 9, an industry-leading 3D animation program.

Source @ Intel Press Release