New 3DTV hardware will be available for purchase through 2010 driven by the success of cinema releases like Avatar. Sky TV is launching the world’s first 3D television station in April which will drive adoption further. It seems certain that with all sections of industry getting ready to rally behind 3DTV it is something game developers will have start putting in their sights.

Game developers are uniquely poised to develop content to take advantage of 3DTV. Filmmakers, sports broadcasters, animation studios, and just about anyone else involved in TV need to make significant investments replacing their infrastructure of cameras, editing equipment, and so on to handle 3D data. Game developers on the other hand already have all that information readily available. In fact we spend a great deal of time trying to make 3D worlds display well on a 2D screen. To make games work with 3D TV we already have the depth information available – we just need the means to convey that data to the new TVs. Therefore our barriers to entry are very low – 3DTV therefore is a great opportunity for the video games industry.

2010 also looks to be hotting up to be the year of the great motion controller battle. While Nintendo’s Wii has been entrenched in the market for some time, Sony and Microsoft have recently made specific announcements about their offerings. Sony pushed back its new controller to an autumn 2010 launch, and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer promised at CES that Natal would be ready for the holidays. The question many are wondering is how will 3D TV interact with motion controller technology for games?

With varying degrees of “depth” projected by different TVs (and similar TVs of different sizes) it will be technically difficult to match up user perceptions of space with what the motion control hardware can capture. If this challenge can be overcome it could produce a new style of augmented reality. Otherwise it could be confusing if users cannot understand why they can’t accurately touch 3D objects. In time these limitations will be overcome.

Here at Cohort Studios, we think the new developments in controller technology and 3D TV have positive implications for the future. On there own, each provides a great leap forward for increasing game immersion – but together they can change the playing field. Work needs to be done to make the glasses less intrusive and harder wearing, and to standardise the output of 3D TVs so game developers have a predictable platform to work with. Overall we like what we see.

What does the future hold? With new 3DTV technology being heavily backed and all three console manufacturers now putting significant resources into motion based games in 2010 then more convergence between devices is certain. With its low costs to create 3DTV content compared to the broadcasting industry, game developers need to be early adopters of the technology so they can get a head start developing the next generations of 3D capable games.

Quotes from this article can be found on Tech Radar’s 3D gaming piece.

San Francisco, CA (February 4, 2010) – Havok™ today announced that it has signed Cohort Studios into its Independent Developer Program.  Cohort will have access to the company’s full suite of cutting-edge, award-winning products and technologies including Havok Animation™, Havok AI™, Havok Behavior™, Havok Cloth™, Havok Destruction™, and Havok Physics™.

“A key part of Cohort’s business strategy revolves around the concept of ‘Partners in Development’ – working together with other key players in the games industry to help manage cost and risk”, said Lol Scragg, CEO of Cohort Studios.  “With this in mind, we’re extremely excited to have joined Havok’s Independent Developer Program.  By gaining access to Havok’s entire suite of technologies, we’ll be able to turn around concept demos and prototypes in much shorter timescales, at less financial risk, and expand our cross-platform expertise in the process.”

The Independent Developer Program enables independent game studios around the globe to execute their creative visions using Havok’s premium, developer-preferred middleware technology.  The Program helps studios minimise the overall risk and high cost associated with internal creation of the tools and technologies required to power today’s sophisticated video and PC games.

Bruce McNeish, Cohort Studios’ CTO adds, “Our in-house engine, Praetorian Tech™, has been designed from the ground up for extensibility and easy integration with middleware.  Havok’s program allows us full access to the company’s many fantastic technologies, and, in tandem with Praetorian, means we now have a very broad creative palette to draw from.  With the Havok agreement, we can integrate cutting-edge technology into our prototypes at an early stage.  This will give our teams more freedom to concentrate on the implementation of unique gameplay and internal technologies to differentiate us in the market, while giving publishers a far better idea of how the final product will play, mitigating risk all round.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to be working with the highly-motivated and creative team at Cohort,” said David O’Meara, Managing Director of Havok.  “Cohort’s focus on gameplay innovation and scalable production practices, when combined with Havok’s technologies and support system, will make a real difference to the gamer’s experience.”

Havok’s modular suite of tools puts power in the hands of creators, empowering them to reach new standards of believability and interactivity in video games.  Havok’s products include access to a powerful and flexible set of art tools tailored to work within a studio’s particular production pipeline and assistance from the most experienced support team in the middleware industry.  All of Havok’s software tools are fully multithreaded and cross-platform optimised.

Havok’s Web site (www.Havok.com) offers downloadable versions of Havok’s Animation, Behavior, and Physics software.

For more information and how to apply, take a look at our jobs page.

Give it a go and let us know your thoughts!

Full press release here

One of our PlayStation 3 PSN titles have been approved for release. As soon as we get a date and our publisher releases details, we will let you all know about it however it should be hitting a PSN store near you very soon.

Finally, we are hopeful that our main project – an original PlayStation 3 title – will receive its announcement and first showing at E3 this year. With this in mind, we are heading over to E3 to catch up with as many people as possible. Feel free to contact us to arrange a meet if you are there during the first week in June.

Anyway, feel free to take a look around both here and our website and please feel free to provide any feedback! You can also follow us on Twitter if you are one of those that isn’t fed up with the amount of social media tools out there at the moment!