<i.Well, many customers for one product pushes the price up, supply and demand of a limited resource.
This would be true for a limited resource, but the Voodoo 2 chip, or the Banshee chip have never been capacity constrained. Well, maybe at the beginning, but not after volume ramp. There has never been a shortage of chips that I know of.
Therefore, 3dfx would simply pass along any cost savings to the OEMs so that they could drive the board cost down and remain competitive with the RIVA, ATI, etc.
Obviously, every other graphics chip company is in the same position. So its clear from the fact that ATI is the only one making money, that their model works. Matrox also made big money in the Millenium/Mystique days, but its questionable where they are at now, given a slight misstep with the G200 (good card, I own one, but not as successful for them as previous cards, I think).
IMO, TDFX made a good move buying STBI. They get a great OEM company, with a decent retail brand, at a reasonable price.
I'll state again that I think RIVA will go the same route, most likely with CREAF, which has other in-house advanced IC development. DIMD is not as likely since this company has never really developed ASICs in-house.
Here's a good article on the deal.
zdnet.com |
