Frontier Dev Regulatory News (FDEV)

20 August 2013

Frontier Developments plc

Development of Zoo Tycoon for Microsoft Xbox One

Frontier Developments plc (AIM: FDEV, "Frontier" or the "Company"), a leading developer of video games with studios in Cambridge, UK and Halifax, Canada, is working with Microsoft to bring the successful Zoo Tycoon franchise to the forthcoming Microsoft Xbox One console, as announced by Microsoft today.

Frontier's proprietary "Cobra" technology is being used by an experienced in-house development team to develop Zoo Tycoon. Cobra is an efficient, cross-platform software development system which allows games to be created for personal computers, tablets, smartphone and videogame consoles. It has been used in a wide variety of Frontier games, including RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3, Thrillville, LostWinds® and Coaster Crazy® as well as Frontier games published by Microsoft Studios, and is currently being used in Frontier's highly anticipated Elite: Dangerous game.

Frontier and Microsoft Studios have worked together since 2010, releasing successful game titles including Kinectimals [Xbox360/Kinect], Kinectimals Mobile [WindowsPhone, iOS, Android], Kinectimals Now With Bears [Xbox360/Kinect], Kinect Disneyland Adventures [Xbox360/Kinect] as well as collaborating on Kinect Star Wars [Xbox360/Kinect]. Kinectimals Mobile was the first game to allow gamers to transfer an Xbox360 game character to a smartphone and back allowing continuous play.

Microsoft intends to publish the game in November as an Xbox One launch title.

David Braben, Frontier Developments CEO, said:

"We are pleased to continue our collaboration with Microsoft by developing one of the first games for the new Xbox One.

"Zoo Tycoon is a much-loved Microsoft franchise, and Frontier has exceptional experience both in developing 'Tycoon'-type games and leading-edge console development with our Cobra technology."

Enquiries:

Frontier Developments

Frontier was founded in 1994 by David Braben, co-author of the seminal Elite game. The Group has around 230 full-time employees and operations in Cambridge, UK and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Frontier has a proven track record of software technology development and innovation spanning several decades of rapid technological change. Frontier has exploited its technology to develop innovative videogames across a wide variety of different game genres and platforms, and has established relationships with globally renowned partners.

At the end of 2012, Frontier raised £1.6 million via Kickstarter, the crowd funding service, and its own site. The funds were raised specifically to develop Elite: Dangerous - the latest iteration of the Elite game that CEO David Braben originally co-authored in 1982 and was published in 1984. Elite was one of the first home computer games to use 3D graphics and the first to employ an open-world 'sandbox' gameplay model. Its revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that the game created the modern space flight simulation genre and influenced gaming as a whole.

Frontier listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in July 2013, having raised around £7 million in funding and entering into a £3 million credit facility with Barclay's bank.

Cobra

Frontier's Cobra software technology has been developed and evolved since 1988. Initially conceived as a solution for the problem of easily porting the same game across different target hardware devices, Cobra today supports multi-core CPU and GPU architectures of PC, console, tablet and smartphone with a modular, high performance system offering of state of the art efficiency and visual fidelity that is applicable across a wide range of game genres. 

Cobra incorporates a framework which enables rapid development of powerful game creation tools, which offer the ability to view, tweak and review changes to content (e.g. animations, audio, 3D models etc) on target platforms in a live game session running on that platform, without the intervention of a programmer. 

Trademarks

Elite, Frontier, LostWinds and Coaster Crazy are registered trademarks of Frontier Developments plc. All rights reserved. Cobra is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.