Re: Breaking into OEM with Banshee; Branding; Box makers; 3D games
Good point about Banshee, Chip. This is their big chance to expand into the mass market.
You said:
At E3, I was told by several TDFX people that their strategy moving forward was to leverage Glide as a platform and Voodoo as a brand to get into larger markets.
I'm ambivalent about the future of Glide ... I'm leaning more towards a "D3D Tomorrow". The smart strategy, in that case, is to continuously build in desirable features specific to your product and lobby the standard to incorporate those features. For example, I understand that D3D6 will support SLI?
On the subject of the Voodoo brand, I believe 3DFX is creating unproductive diffusion of their branding effort by separately promoting the "Voodoo" and "3DFX" brands. Part of the strength of Coca Cola is that there's only one brand being pushed there. 3DFX should change their name to "Voodoo" or "3D Voodoo" etc. to focus the branding energy. And "Banshee" just manages to avoid any benefit whatsoever -- seems like 3DFX is making the same mistake here as Intel is making with "Celeron".
At E3, I got the strong impression that the box-makers see 3D gaming of all types as a way to sell higher-end computers to retail consumers.
I agree that vendors think that. But I also think they're wrong -- certainly 3D will have an impact but I just dont see it as being all that signficant.
You said:
Intel's main marketing message at E3 - "Pentiums Make 3D Fun!"
This is just stupid (of Intel). Technology companies are pathetic at marketing to consumers.
You said:
at least 40% (gut estimate) of the hardware accelerated games I saw at E3 were not First Person Shooters - Flight Simulators, Racing Sims, Sports Titles, Homeworld (a cool 3D version of C&C in space), Final Fantasy, etc.
Yes but those games don't push gamers to buy 3D boards. At least, the effect is not as strong as the key titles like Quake and Unreal. I'm sure we all know folks who bought a Voodoo board -specifically- to play Unreal. I sure don't know anybody who bought one to play NBA Live.
On the other hand, your point that the aggregate effect of the increasing number of 3D-hardware-supporting titles is a boost to 3D part demand is well taken. This indicates the beginning of hypergrowth. Whether 3DFX can leverage their early lead into continued success depends on maintaining perfect execution -- Voodoo3.
God bless,
PX |
