¡¡¡¡IBM and Grid pioneer Butterfly.net announced today that Butterfly has signed a Play Station®2 Tools and Middleware agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. to provide technology and networking services for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system. As part of the agreement, IBM and Butterfly activated a first-of-its-kind computing grid that allows online game developers to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of PlayStation 2 by more efficiently provisioning resources to meet the demands of console gamers.
¡¡¡¡The Butterfly Grid for PlayStation 2 online gaming will be unveiled next week at the annual Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. The developer's Grid for building and testing online games is hosted by IBM.
¡¡¡¡PlayStation 2 game developers can ensure that their games are always available online and operate at peak performance by engineering their games directly on a live computing grid. Registered developers will receive a software development kit with sample games, client libraries, server software, documentation and technical support. Developers can access the Grid by registering at www.butterfly.net.
¡¡¡¡"We've enjoyed very rapid progress and outstanding performance while developing and testing VibeForce on the Butterfly Grid," said Curt Benefield, Chief Executive Officer of Sherman3D, a video game developer with offices in Malaysia and the United States. "The Grid has allowed us to build the bulk of our game logic, our motion models and our artificial intelligence systems with familiar tools and standard interfaces. Our engineers can get close to the metal on the client, the servers and over the network to bring the action-backed, richly-rewarding console experience online."
IBM and Grid pioneer Butterfly¡¡03-05 19:10