Electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Corp on Thursday unveiled a range of development tools so software companies can develop games for its next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console. The company said it acquired Britain's SN Systems Ltd and formed strategic alliances with US-based Ageia Technologies Inc, Havok and Epic Games to provide more tools.
Having led the world-wide console gaming market for the last decade, Sony is counting on PlayStation 3 to dominate in all aspects of networked home entertainment - games, movies, music and more.
The company had said in May at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that it planned to launch PlayStation 3 in 2006, but there had been concern in the development community about the immense cost of creating games with movie-quality graphics for a machine with unparalleled processing speed.
"Things that we thought were only possible in movies are now possible in games," Ken Kutaragi, Sony's game division head, told a meeting of developers, suppliers and media.
Sony has said the PS3 will feature a graphics chip with 300 million transistors, more than the combined processing power of the current-generation Microsoft Corp Xbox, Nintendo Co Ltd Game Cube and the PlayStation 2 combined.