The Intel-owned Irish software firm Havok has acquired the technology product Kore Vitual Machine for an undisclosed sum.
Kore Virtual Machine (VM) was developed by former Havok founders Steven Collins and Hugh Reynolds for their company New Game Technologies. The product, which is shortly to be rebranded as Havok Script, is a Lua compatible VM designed for console game development.
Kore VM has been licensed by Sega, Bungie, Lionhead, Masthead Studios, United Front Games, NetDevil and a number of other studios for use with their products. Kore is also currently powering the title Supreme Commander 2 which is published by Square Enix and developed by Gas Powered Games.
Havok, which has offices in Dublin, Tokyo and San Francisco, is a leading provider of interactive software and services to the gaming and movie industries.
It has a portfolio of six products which help game developers and digital animators make the visual effects in games and movies more realistic and interactive than ever before.Havok'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 while a further 130 games are currently 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.
Commenting on the acquisition, Mr Reynolds, chief executive at New Game Technologies, said “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 optimised cross-platform technology. It's a real win-win result," he added.