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morpheme

Licensed by Heavenly Sword boys Ninja Theory.

SAN FRANCISCO and OXFORD, U.K. - June 17, 2008 NaturalMotion, Ltd., developers of the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that Ninja Theory Ltd., the developer behind flagship PLAYSTATION®3 title Heavenly Sword has licensed morpheme, the company’s animation engine and graphical authoring tool.

“One of Ninja Theory’s genuine goals is to push the technology envelope and create gaming experiences that are immersive and truly next-generation,” said Mike Ball, Chief Technology Ninja at Ninja Theory. “Today’s games require more than just realistic graphics – character animations need to be smooth, lifelike and convincing in order to really bring gamers into our worlds, and morpheme delivers the level of control required for that aspect of game development.”

morpheme is robust animation middleware designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real time.

“With Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory demonstrated their commitment to moving levels of visual fidelity forward in gaming,” said Andy Payne, NaturalMotion’s vice president of sales for Europe and Asia. “We believe morpheme will help them continue to raise the bar for the development of their new IP by giving more power to the animation artists and developers behind their groundbreaking games.”

About Ninja Theory

Ninja Theory was formed in Cambridge England, in November of 2004, by Nina Kristensen (Chief Development Ninja), Mike Ball (Chief Technology Ninja), Tameem Antoniadis (Chief Design Ninja) and Non-Executive Ninja, Jez San OBE. Ninja Theory was formerly known as Just Add Monsters Ltd. and was the team behind Kung Fu Chaos. Ninja Theory believes in the potential of next-generation gaming to elevate games into a true artistic entertainment medium to rival film, theatre and literature. As such Ninja Theory were one of the first game development studios in the world to focus exclusively on next generation gaming and is currently developing Heavenly Sword for PLAYSTATION®3, under an exclusive agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

About NaturalMotion

NaturalMotion Ltd. is the first company to create 3D character animation software based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS), a technology that utilizes Adaptive Behaviors and artificial intelligence to simulate the human-nervous system. Based on research conducted at Oxford University on the control of body movements, NaturalMotion’s euphoria synthesizes 3D character animation in real time on PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360® and PC. Having debuted in Rockstar Games’ record-breaking Grand Theft Auto IV, euphoria will also feature in upcoming LucasArts’ upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

NaturalMotion’s off-line DMS product endorphin creates animation an order of magnitude faster than traditional techniques, and is widely used in the film and game industries, with customers such as Sony, Giant Killer Robots, The Mill, Capcom, Namco and Konami.

NaturalMotion’s third product, morpheme, is the industry’s first graphically authorable animation engine designed to give animators full control over the look of their animations in-game. Announced morpheme customers include IO Interactive, Bioware and Red 5.

For further information please visit NaturalMotion’s website www.naturalmotion.com, or join the 100,000 endorphin LE users at community.naturalmotion.com.

© euphoria, endorphin and morpheme are registered trademarks of NaturalMotion Ltd.

Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox Live are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. "PLAYSTATION" is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “Heavenly Sword” is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Wes Phillips , TriplePoint for NaturalMotion

(415) 955-8500

wes@triplepointpr.com

Nina Kristensen, Ninja Theory Ltd

+44 (0) 1223 460080

nina@ninjatheory.com

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