It had to happen sooner or later. Futuremark is finally going to be producing its own games. This is hardly a surprise. In fact, it's more surprising that it has taken so long. Futuremark's new Games Studio plans to combine 'highest quality game play' with 'blow-your-socks-off visuals'. But can it really make a difference in what is now a very competitive games market?

Peeling back the Onion

Founded in 1997, Futuremark has been producing cutting-edge games engines ever since it released 3DMark99. This was the first really serious benchmarking tool for Direct3D, when it still wasn't certain this would be the de facto standard for PC gaming.

Indeed, 3DMark has always been ahead of the market. After all, if a new benchmark is to remain a relevant test of 3D performance for a year or two, it needs to access the features of games and hardware which haven't become mainstream yet.

For example, 3DMark99 tested fixed function vertex transform and lighting, and led the way with multi-texturing. 3DMark2000 added hardware-accelerated transform and lighting before any game took advantage of it. 3DMark2001 debuted shaders, with extensive use of Vertex Shader 1.1 and the first use of Pixel Shader 1.1 in its last test routine.

Although 3DMark03 stuck mostly with Shader Model 1.1, it contained the first use of Shader Model 2, again in the last test. And so on, until we get to 3DMark Vantage, due later this year. Although this will stick with DirectX 10, Vantage will exclusively require Windows Vista - a bold move considering how many gamers are sticking with XP for now.

Looks aren't everything

So Futuremark already has a clear strength in getting to grips with the latest DirectX technologies. You would expect its Games Studio to produce titles showcasing what each new generation of the API can do, just as is already the case with 3DMark.

But leading the way with visuals is not all there is to a successful game. Just look at the failure of Crysis and contrast that to the success of the Wii. Crysis may look great, but the hardware required to achieve this feat has actually been a disadvantage.