Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., announced on March 18th the immediate availability of a new suite of utilities and tools designed to speed up and simplify the creation of games animation and effects for the Xbox? video game system from Microsoft. This new Platform Development Kit (PDK) for the SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® software brings the industry?s leading nonlinear 3-D production environment directly into the hands of Xbox developers and artists, offering them in-context control over their art and dramatic productivity boosts.