Hi, its me again :) After reading about the latest real-time voice over internet gaming developments, a few things came to my mind.
TDFX needs more proprietary stuff. More reasons for people to choose TDFX over everybody else. H3D? Should they have bought them out? Would this have been a decent marketing move? Could they not make their own shutter glasses, or make such glasses work with any glide game? Could they not buy the drivers off of Wicked, and incorporate this into Glide?
How about working real-time voice into Glide? Maybe that is just stupid, but if they bought out these guys at Battlefield commander and included it with Glide, then maybe they would again be able to insulate themseves with new features that other cards don't have. Perhaps they could just give the software out with each TDFX card, but it wouldn't run without detecting TDFX drivers in use...
I don't know...neither of these things would have been remarkably expensive, yet would continue to entrench TDFX as the gamers choice (particularly the first person shooter's game of choice). You could certainly argue that these things don't have anything to do with TDFX's core competency, and would take away from TDFX's focus, but that would suggest that they are only a chip company, not an entertainment company, which is what they would have us believe.
They need a "gamers department" at TDFX where they can expand their name and market. Any particular reason that the joystick port is on the soundcard? (Yeah, I know, MIDI...not a very good reason :) What if some engineer could make a new joystick port that would work with 4 gamepads. The port would poll more frequently than current ports, and would configure super easily (hmm...sounds like USB). It would be especially great for sports games, and would provide console-like ease of use. Games would support this port specifically, it would be supported in Glide, and the port design would be a proprietary TDFX design, so ya gotta buy a Voodoo to get the support.
I don't know. Maybe these are stupid ideas, but the point is that we need more to differentiate ourselves. We need to innovate. |
