Scott, I agree that "demand" from OEMs keeps chip price down, but I don't really think "competition" does. Also, why would competition allow chip prices to stay high? At the end of the day, with a very competitive Riva TNT chip, and now an ATI 128 chip available, the price of a TDFX chip has to come down to compete.
Well, many customers for one product pushes the price up, supply and demand of a limited resource. Competition from other chip makers will push prices down no matter how many consumers there are of TDFX chips.
So, I was using "competition" to mean demand specifically for TDFX chips amongst TDFX' current OEM's, but certainly competition from other chip makers is also relevant.
"Is Rampage Voodoo 3?"
No, Rampage is the next generation TDFX part, which will have features which are unusable via DirectX (until MS updates DX) or OpenGL (until TDFX updates the ICD), but will be immediatley usable via Glide, which will get an updated release along with the chip. The current Glide docs seem to refer to forthcoming features already.
I don't think TDFX needed to buy anyone to have a retail presence, especially anyone as big as STBI (and with as much baggage). I guess I believe in their brand more than they do. TDFX and Quantum could have been a better arrangement. (Though there may have been reasons behind the original spinoff which would prevent a second marriage.)
Note: For those who don't know, Quantum3D is a board maker who was spun off from TDFX a couple of years ago so TDFX could concentrate on chip design. Well, the circle's complete. :) |
