New developer Circle Studio, which was founded by former Core Design employees earlier this year, has today announced that it has chosen Criterion Software's RenderWare technology for the development of its first two titles. Circle Studio is currently working on games for both the PS2 and Xbox and has chosen RenderWare to optimize the team's efficiency to enable them to focus on the creative elements in the games they're working on.

　　"The industry is not about technology anymore. It's about creativity. Our philosophy as a developer is to concentrate on creativity, gameplay, and content--the elements that truly add value to individual titles and, ultimately, to the industry as a whole, as higher quality games are delivered to market," said Jeremy Heath-Smith, managing director of Circle Studio. "In order to achieve this, we cannot afford to continually chase technology and reinvent the wheel for every game or format we work on. Outsourcing technology to Criterion, who has spent hundreds of man-years of R&D on generating the very best core technology, means we immediately have a robust framework in place on which we can engineer our own technologies, specifically designed to drive the uniqueness and originality of our titles."

　　"Building technologies in-house as a point of pride is no longer commercially sensible today, nor will it be viable as we move towards the next generation," added David Lau-Kee, CEO of Criterion. "Generating unique content, delivering groundbreaking creative concepts and gameplay, and building valuable IP are the elements that are ultimately going to drive a company's value proposition. We are delighted to be supporting Circle on its current projects."

　　We'll bring you more information on Circle Studio's upcoming PS2 and Xbox games as soon as it becomes available.