Havok Announces the Acquisition of Kore VM Product

SAN FRANCISCO, October 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Havok, the Emmy award winning technology company, has acquired the Kore Virtual Machine (VM) product and technology.

Kore VM was developed by the Irish company New Game Technologies and is a highly optimized implementation of the Lua scripting language and ships with Kore Studio, an on-target profiler and an integrated environment for Microsoft Visual Studio. The Kore VM has been licensed by Sega, Bungie, Lionhead, Masthead Studios, United Front Games, NetDevil and a number of additional undisclosed studios. Kore is also currently powering the title Supreme Commander 2 published by Square Enix and developed by Gas Powered Games.

Havok has taken over all technical and commercial functions and Kore will now be rebranded as Havok Script. A broader transition period has also begun where Havok and Kore will work closely together both technically and commercially to ensure a seamless hand over for existing and new customers alike. Havok Script will be licensed as a fully standalone product which can be used completely independent of Havok's other products. Over time Havok will announce more details on how Havok Script will interact and integrate with Havok's full suite of products.

With Havok Script, Havok can now offer its customers the fastest virtual machine for consoles on the market with the most fully featured toolset. Havok will be providing all future support, licensing and services for Havok Script and has a dedicated engineering team in place for on-going development.

David Coghlan, Managing Director of Havok, said:

"This is a very exciting time for Havok as we complete our first product technology acquisition and extend our offering to include Havok Script. Havok has a long standing reputation for supporting our customers extremely well and as you would expect with any Havok acquisition, we will work closely with Havok Script customers to service and support them through the transition of the product to Havok."

Hugh Reynolds, CEO of New Game Technologies (NGT), says:

"We'd been looking at taking the company in a new R&D direction for some time. I guess we thrive on new product development, so we were delighted when the opportunity came up to place the Kore VM technology with Havok. Without a doubt, Havok is the company that has the best track-record in the games industry for supporting customers and delivering optimized cross-platform technology. It's a real win-win result."

Havok, which has offices in Dublin, Tokyo and San Francisco, is the leading provider of interactive software and services to the global game and movie industries. The company has a portfolio of six cutting edge products which help game developers and digital animators make the visual effects in games and movies more realistic and interactive than ever before.

Havok works in partnership with the world's best-known game developers, including Microsoft(R), Nintendo(R), and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. Havok's cross-platform, professionally supported technology is available for the Xbox 360(TM) video game and entertainment system, PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system, PSP(R), Wii(TM), and PC Games for Windows.

The company's Emmy award winning physics engines have been used to drive visual effects in nearly 270 of the world's best-known game titles, including Halo Reach, Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2, and Bioshock 2. A further 130 games are in development. Havok products have also been used to drive special effects in movies such as Clash of the Titans, Watchmen, Quantum of Solace, Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, and The Matrix.

http://www.havok.com

About New Game Technologies

Established by Havok founders Steven Collins and Hugh Reynolds, NGT creates advanced solutions for the games and digital entertainment industries. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with engineering offices in Dublin.

SOURCE Havok