Tom's NVIDIA review site has a new post. For some reason Tom has a promblem (again) with 3Dfx marketing. He seems to have a problem with 3dfx wanting to have a smooth launch and marketing campaign. He posted some 3dfx communications where they were offering up to $15,000/month for the campaign. It seems that they wanted "integration" which seems to me to mean 3Dfx wanted web pages that tied into the promotion (i.e. - click through to pre-order, enter contest, banner ads, etc.). Of course, 3dfx wanted the V3 launch to be a big deal and wanted positive stories (anyone who reads web reviews has to remember that the larger sites depend more and more on advertising and the smaller ones want the goodwill of the hardware and software companies . Lots of incentive for hype and good reviews vs. bad reviews).
Tom, the great tester (at least in his mind) complained that 3dfx didn't tell him that the V3 2000 was going to be 143 mhtz. Of course, the press release the week before clearly stated that and all the other websites had no problems with it (i.e., they got it right).
Sharky is still hyping the "TNT SLI" when it isn't SLI, works with all chipsets (Banshee is being used as the technology demo), and requires special boards (i.e., if you've bought one already, you're out of luck).
As for the stock price, since many of the box makers took a hit on friday (and most PC-related tech stocks did as well), I see nothing weird in 3dfx doing the same. Right now they get a great deal of sales from the retail market, so I don't see a big effect on their Q1 (but Gateway also took a hit). Some good news, Gateway is now advertising 3dfx Banshee on their website under their performance computers gateway.com.
I also see the other boardmakers buying the bare minimum of chipsets possible in Q1. The V3 sales to STB will help (and STB may be selling TNT to Gateway right now instead of Banshee for some models which still helps 3dfx as it turns inventory to cash) I'm going to call 3dfx next week and ask about how Q1 sales look and if they're bleeding off their inventory at a decent rate.
Michael
ps - I looked at the new Dell P3's - STB tuner cards and an unnamed 16 meg video card. Will we see V3's there soon? Is the first run of V3's to supply them which would push the retail launch out a little? <- note I just made that up as I typed this message, no other proof as of yet. |
