San Rafael, Calif. - Autodesk Inc. has acquired Scaleform Corp., a privately held middleware and user-interface (UI) tools company, for approximately $36 million in cash. Scaleform's technology has aided in the development of more than 800 games for a variety of hardware platforms, including Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony Playstation 3 (PS3).
Recently, Autodesk began expanding its games portfolio through the addition of middleware and other games technologies in response to a growing industry need for more efficient, integrated solutions for game content creation.
Scaleform's flagship product, Scaleform GFx, enables development teams to implement game UIs and other content easily using the popular design tool Adobe Flash. It also comprises tools and middleware designed to help developers take full advantage of the 3D hardware acceleration capabilities of most popular game devices. Scaleform GFx is typically used to create game menu UIs, in-game heads-up displays (HUDs), animated textures, and mini games, and even full casual and mobile games.