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Razer News from GDC '10

By GG-Joylia 4 months, 3 weeks ago • 0 Comments

RAZER NEWS: Collaboration with Sixense and Reassures Commitment to Mac Users

At the GDC in San Francisco, Razer announced along with Sixense Entertainment March 9, 2010 that the Ultra-Precise Motion Controller SDK (Software Developer Kit) and FPS (First Person Shooter) utility library will be available for download from Steam.

“As the industry leader in computer interface design, it was a priority for us to enable and equip developers with the tools necessary to create new games and to port favorite titles for the Ultra-Precise Motion Controller, and the SDK and FPS utility library do just that,” said Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, president, Razer USA. “I’m personally very excited to see the games that developers will create that take advantage of six degrees of freedom, but I’m also eager to experience some of my favorite games in a whole new dimension.”

The library requires virtually no knowledge of the inner workings of a controller and was designed to give developers the ability to effortlessly create a gaming experience that takes advantage of the six degrees of motion.

“Our SDK computes its exact position (X-Y-Z) and orientation (pitch-roll-yaw) to the nearest millimeter and degree and reports these values to the game with no shadowing and no drift. In gaming this instant response is the difference between instructing a character to do something and actually being that character,” said Jeff Bellinghausen, CTO, Sixense. “To give you an idea, with Valve’s support, we were able to fully integrate the SDK with our FPS Utility Library into Left 4 Dead 2 in less than two weeks.”

The trio partnership allows instant access to all the tools needed to begin game development for a motion sensing platform.

“The Ultra-Precise Motion Controller offers gamers a new way to interact with the games they love and we are excited to give developers’ easy access to the SDK and FPS library on Steam” said Greg Coomer, product design lead, Valve. “Together with Razer and Sixense, we are designing new, more enjoyable gameplay mechanics in Left 4 Dead 2, as well as future Valve titles.”

“Steam was an easy choice for distributing the Ultra-Precise Motion Controller SDK to developers. Besides being the leading destination for millions of gamers, Steam is focused on serving PC developers,” said Amir Rubin, CEO, Sixense. “We will continue to partner with game developers around the world to provide the best gaming experiences.”

The library can be accessed on Steam by going to the “Tools” tab or contacting gamedevrelations@razer.com. For more information about this, check out www.razerzone.com/motionsensing/.

Continuing on, Razer than set out to reaffirm their commitment to supporting Mac users by announcing March 10, 2010 that they plan to increase support for Mac users by providing driver support for all upcoming Razer products for the Mac.

“I’m very proud to say that at Razer, we are committed to supporting both Mac and PC gamers,” said Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, president, Razer USA. “We are constantly working to increase driver support for Mac with our existing Razer products and have plans to release all of our new products with dedicated Mac and PC drivers. This is a really exciting opportunity to expand the gaming industry and make it more inclusive for Mac users by providing the same level of support that we give to our PC users.”

This will also include support for the Razer StarCraft II peripheral suite. Since 2008, with the release of Razer DeathAdder and their recent release of the Razer Naga for Macs, Razer is proud to offer several options to Mac users. This comes in time as just recently, Valve confirmed their partnership with Apple to be able to bring Steam to the Mac gaming community.