Square Enix announced that it will create new game experiences through “Project FLARE,” a new project that Square Enix describes as, “a technological breakthrough in cloud game architecture.” According to the company, Square Enix is collaborating with companies such as Ubisoft on this project and is seeking to team up with other cutting-edge developers and partners to further the advances made possible by “Project FLARE.”
Square Enix believes that cloud will revolutionize the way users will interact with content, and the way that content is delivered to users. Square Enix further envisions that a need for content that matches with these new methods of interaction and distribution will increase considerably. To support this vision, Square Enix is providing the technological basis by which developers and distribution partners can seize the opportunity to provide games at their full potential with the cloud.
New experiences to be offered with “Project FLARE” include Hollywood-quality animation running in real time to deepen the player’s immersion, uncapping AI and physics processing to realize the extremes of realism and fantasy, and video streams allowing even existing games to be enjoyed in new ways.
These new, supercomputer-like game experiences are possible with “Project FLARE” by a unique, patented architecture enabling cost-efficient scalability of processing power, through which images are streamed as video. Square Enix has recently conducted live demonstrations of “Project FLARE” technology; videos will be made publicly available at the “Project FLARE” website.
These new experiences will be enjoyable to their full extent in fiber and other broadband environments, to ensure high quality and low latency. Square Enix has engaged Ubisoft as an early partner on “Project FLARE”; Ubisoft’s “Arcus” technology and team at its Quebec studio are developing new means of streaming “Project FLARE” games directly to players, in addition to applications that connects the players’ gaming platforms to infrastructure running “Project FLARE.”
“Ubisoft and Square Enix share a similar vision for how cloud gaming will drive our industry forward,” said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. “The technical advances made by Square Enix and Ubisoft’s growing expertise in cloud computing infrastructure will eventually help us deliver gaming experiences that are more accessible and immersive than anything available today.”
“We are convinced that our “Project FLARE” will open the door for a new era in gaming,” said Square Enix Co. Ltd. Chairman Yoichi Wada. “In the game industry, revolutions in both technology and business models have evolved content, and growth has come from the new game experiences born of that content. In recent years, growth has been driven entirely by the business models such as F2P. Finally, the technological breakthrough has arrived.”
Partners and developers inspired by the vision, technology and service plans should contact Square Enix to learn more about working together at http://www.jp.square-enix.com/flare/
