Emergent Game Technologies, which was recently bolstered following the merger of NDL, the maker of the Gamebryo 3D graphics tools and engine, into the company, has announced significant plans to enter the next-generation game engine market, currently dominated by Epic's Unreal Engine 3.
Talking at the Austin Game Conference, the company announced that it has shipped version 2.1 of Gamebryo, and that the new version features Xbox 360 final platform support. It has also confirmed for the first time that a PlayStation 3 version of the engine is currently in development. In addition, Gamebryo 2.1 adds a visual performance tool, a reduced memory footprint, a memory allocation system and support for Max 8 and Maya 7.
Emergent's current-gen game engine has been used in games such as Sid Meier's Civilization 4 and Playboy: The Mansion, and its next-gen engine has already been deployed in at least one title, since it is powering Bethesda's Xbox 360 launch window game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
However, Epic's early start in the next-generation game market, alongside its self-developed titles such as Gears Of War and both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 engine compatibility, has meant it has had practically no next-gen engine competition to date, with Unreal Engine 3's multiple licensees including Microsoft Game Studios, Namco, Midway, Silicon Knights, Real Time Worlds, Buena Vista Games and VU Games.
Geoffrey Selzer, Emergent’s president and CEO, commented of his company's plans: "We’re making the technology, tools and middleware that we believe will usher in the next phase of innovation in game development and game play, using the newly combined strengths of our two organizations. The next generation of games will require greater innovation while facing increased complexity and costs of development. We are driving the state of the art of game development, offering visibility into and control of the development process."
