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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Matt Webster who wrote (2598)	4/26/1998 1:07:00 AM
From: Obewon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

As a newcomer to the thread, I would like to ask how the company is marketing its product? From what I've seen and heard, 3Dfx is going after the hardcore graphics market while somewhat ignoring the fact that PC manufacturers are shipping "inferior" (but certainly less expensive) products in their new middle-to-high end PC's. Therefore, the company's customers are not (currently) the PC manufacturers, it is consumers. I have been looking at getting a new 400MHz Pentium II computer for the past week and checking out what I can decipher of the video cards available. Everywhere I've gone (except possibly CompUSA because I haven't got to one yet), no one selling these graphic accelerators can SHOW me that there is a difference. The better places had someone familiar with it and each told me that the difference between a Voodoo and Voodoo II card was only really noticable if you bought a 300MHz or above machine. Looking in various PC hardware reviews is no good because they are filled with terms that I as a non-game designer can't understand. My point is that if I can't determine the superiority of the card ahead of time, why should I buy it? In the end, consumers and software designers will gravitate toward a single standard. And guess what? I is usually NOT the "best" one but the one that is most "familiar". Currently, this seems to be 3Dfx if what I've heard on this thread is true. As a pioneer in the small market of 3Dgraphics, the company had the product that could use the best effects. However, if PC manufacturers continue to put more competitors chipsets into the market, it will be the games designers that will be forced for economic reasons (they are in the business of selling games to the mass market) to shift. IMHO their is little chance at today's current price environment that PC manufacturers are going to switch to card makers using 3Dfx's chipsets unless prices on the cards are drastically reduced. Just one confused consumers ramblings!