Just a thought...boy are the Wicked folks (Metabyte? can't think right now) going to be Wicke pissed! They put EVERYTHING behind TDFX...ouch.
Ok, so I was thinking. Now instead of having TDFX chips represented by a dozen companies in a retail store, thereby owning lots of shelfage, what now with only 1 board? Actually, they will have 4 boards : the V2 for a while (possibly?), Banshee, and V3 2000/3000. Quickly (hopefully) followed up with Rampage. Thats a pretty nice bucnh of cards. Now, what about the competition? Surely the TNT and its variants will replace TDFX as the "multi-vendor" shelf hog...I don't think so. I think that CREAF will snap nVidia up so fast our heads will spin. So now you will be looking at eliminating the STBI and DIMD TNT cards. So the shelf will look like CREAF TNT/TNT2, TDFX (4 products), and DIMD with the S3 chip (curious to see if they can spin the Monster label successfully to the Virge past-history carrying S3), and ATI with maybe 2 cards. Not bad.
Now, crucial to the success of this eneavor is Retail ($) sales. Will TDFX use their own name or STBI's? Will it be a 3Dfx Rampage board or a STB Rampage board? Will they Brand it with a name like Monster, Velocity, Stealth, or Graphics Blaster? (would doubt it, as they want to build GW with the chip/company not the board- that is only good for boardmakers like DIMD who need to build a name they can use if they get screwed by their chip supplier).
Jeff "whoa, lost a lot today" Lins |
