HP showed off several of its gaming research and development projects at a recent San Francisco media event. The company said that many of these technologies had been in progress before the VoodooPC acquisition, but Rahul Sood and other VoodooPC leaders were able to see the gaming applications of previous research.

I spent some time trying mscape ("mediascape") and discussing the project with some of its engineers. This gaming platform -- which isn't meant to compete with a hardware-and-software solution like the DS or PSP -- has already been used in the real world, unlike most of the in-progress projects demonstrated.

Mscape sits on a PocketPC or other device, presenting an augmented reality game space. Other game designers and companies have tried to bridge the virtual world and the real world, with games that are played on devices by moving around outside. But HP's muscle may eventually help push these new experiences to mainstream gamers.

HP described how its consumption of VoodooPC has impacted both companies at a media event this week. Shane Robison, an HP VP, said that one of the biggest effects is that HP now has "Voodoo DNA" pumping through its hallways, we think like a virus affecting a host. Should the injection become a problem, HP may someday page Dr. Mario to sort things out; Rahul Sood, CTO of the HP gaming group and founder of VoodooPC, repeatedly said that HP wants to complement consoles and not be a competitor.

HP, however, offered few specific plans to bring PCs and consoles closer together from a gamer's perspective. Instead, the company showed a series of game technology demos that may someday be licensed to console makers, generating more income from its annual $3.5 billion research and development budget. One of those projects, mscape, has been called a handheld challenger in other stories, but HP executives told us that it's a platform that runs on certain PocketPCs and other devices; HP doesn't plan to ship an all-in-one hardware-and-software version of the augmented reality gaming tool.

HP will continue pushing its computers to gamers, keeping the VoodooPC brand at the top of its price/performance tier, while introducing a new line of PCs that fits between the gap between that ultra-high end and HP's standard machines.