Autodesk vient d’annoncer une nouvelle assez surprenante : le géant du logiciel a l’intention de racheter Scaleform, société produitant des interfaces utilisateur et du middleware à destination du secteur du jeu vidéo.
Cette offre de rachat, qui s’élève à 36 millions de dollars – en cash – est non sollicitée : autrement dit, c’est Autodesk qui engage les hostilités. Le choix revient donc à Scaleform Corporation d’accepter ou non.
A vrai dire, tout semble déjà plié, si l’on s’en réfère au communiqué enthousiaste, et l’affaire devrait se finaliser d’ici la fin du trimestre financier actuel du géant de la 3D, qui se termine le 30 avril. Scaleform bénéficie même déjà de sa propre url sur le site d’Autodesk !
Le produit phare de Scaleform, Scaleform GFx, permet la création rapide d’une interface utilisateur (UI) pour un jeu vidéo à l’aide de d’Adove Flash et de la Creative Suite. Menus, HUD, mini jeux ou applications mobiles peuvent donc être générés rapidement.
A titre d’exemple, voici deux vidéos montrant des menu créés grâce à Scaleform GFx (la partie à partir de 1 minute 21 étant sans doute la plus impressionnante), puis une plongée dans le HUD Kit, middleware qui permet de gérer des HUD de façon poussée.
Le communiqué de presse complet :
Autodesk has announced it intends to acquire Scaleform Corporation, a privately held user interface (UI) tools and middleware company, for approximately US$36 million in cash. Scaleform’s leading technology has been licensed in the development of at least 800 games across major hardware platforms: PCs, Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PS3, Sony PSP, and Nintendo Wii. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and expected to close in Autodesk’s first quarter of fiscal 2012 (which ends on April 30, 2011).
Scaleform’s flagship product, Scaleform GFx, allows development teams to more quickly and easily author game UIs and interactive 3D experiences using popular design tools: Adobe Flash and Adobe Creative Suite software. Scaleform GFx helps developers take advantage of the 3D hardware acceleration capabilities of modern systems to create cinematic quality menus, in-game heads up displays (HUDs), animated textures, mini-games, and even mobile games and applications.
The Scaleform acquisition will further Autodesk’s ability to provide customers with more complete workflows to more rapidly develop immersive 3D and casual game experiences, said Marc Stevens, Vice President, Games, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. The Scaleform team will bring a wealth of expertise in creating highly optimized runtime solutions for PCs, consoles and mobile devices. We expect the integration of Scaleform to allow us to innovate faster and help further improve the game creation process for online, console, and mobile development.
Autodesk is a leading provider of 3D content creation tools to the games industry. Autodesk is adding to its games portfolio in response to a growing industry need for more efficient, integrated content creation solutions.
Our combined technologies will not only provide game developers with an improved authoring environment and runtime solution, but will also apply to the broader interactive entertainment industry ranging from film to mobile to the web, said Brendan Iribe, President and Chief Executive Officer of Scaleform. We will finally realize our long standing vision of integrating 2D and 3D authoring technology while continuing our commitment to deliver leading-edge real-time graphics solutions to our customers.
As part of the acquisition, Brendan Iribe, along with Scaleform’s Chief Technology Officer, Michael Antonov, and Chief Operating Officer, Marc Bennett, will join the leadership team in Autodesk Media & Entertainment. Scaleform offices will remain in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Pour en savoir plus :
Autodesk.com
Scaleform.com
