PS Meeting 2005: Sony Hooks Up with AGEIA

SCEI continues PS3 physics push with additional SDK includes.

As one of several new agreements announced by Sony Computer Entertainment at its annual PlayStation Meeting 2005, SCEI revealed that it has entered a strategic alliance with AGEIA Technologies -- a California-based physics tool and hardware developer that's effective retroactively beginning July 20, 2005. Through the agreement, Sony has obtained the sublicensing rights for the AGEIA PhysX SDK (aka NovadeX) for use in its own PlayStation 3 SDK (software development kit). PhysX is a highly-respected development solution that allows for easy in-game physics and is used quite often in engines such as Unreal 3.0 (which was also announced as one of Sony's new strategic sublicenses).


Apparently, the reason Sony wanted to incorporate the PhysX SDK into its own toolset is because of the kit's multi-threading capabilities (which make it ideal for the multi-tasking beast that is the Cell processor). The licensing agreement gives Sony and AGEIA the opportunity to optimize PhysX for PS3 use, while frontline support will be provided by SCEI directly.

"A licensing agreement with AGEIA is a strategic move for us" said Masa Chatani, corporate executive and CTO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "With AGEIA PhysX SDK provided as part of Software Development Kit for PS3, we believe that numbers of content with entirely new forms of physics expressions optimizing the power of the Cell processor will be developed."

"This agreement between SCEI and AGEIA marks a significant landmark in the development of advanced physics-enabled games," said Manju Hegde, founder and CEO of AGEIA Technologies, Inc. "The capabilities of the AGEIA PhysX SDK combined with the power of the Cell architecture will give developers the tools necessary to introduce dynamic physical properties within games that will leapfrog game interactivity as we know it today."

Stay tuned to IGN for more as it unfolds.