Intel has reportedly purchased Havok, a company that is responsible for developing the physics processing API used in many of today's most popular games, including the Half Life 2 series, Bioshock, Halo, Oblivion, among many others.  This could mean some exciting developments on the gaming front--it might mean Intel will have the ability to effectively optimize game physics for multi-core CPUs, bringing much-needed advancements to this area.  However, what does this mean for AMD?  Could Intel theoretically artifically limit the performance of AMD processors when running Havok-enabled games?  Also, recall both AMD and nVidia have announced partnerships with Havok to run physics on their GPUs, a possibility that could certainly be dead in the water, if it wasn't already. 

The real winner in this transaction might be Ageia.  Ageia gives away their physics API for free to game developers as long as that developer will optimize the game for Ageia's PhysX processor.  However, the company has appeared to struggle to this point, with very few games offering compelling reasons to purchase the PhysX physics processing unit (PPU).  However, PhysX is now the only major independent physics API, and might be in the prime position to fill Havok's vacated position in this industry. 

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