posted 12-15- 07:48 PM               

quote:

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The official 3dfx web site has posted a letter from the company's founder Scott Sellers on the just announced sale of most of 3dfx's assets to its main rival in the video card business, NVIDIA:
To our valued customers:

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the support you've given 3dfx over the years. Through all our ups and downs, we've always been proud of our extremely loyal customers and fans. That's what makes our actions of today so difficult.

It's no secret that 3dfx has been in a very poor financial state for some time. Although we've done our best to avoid taking drastic action, we have finally been forced to admit that there is no possible way we can continue in our current state. As such, we have negotiated an agreement with nVidia that will allow us to provide the best possible result to our creditors, investors, employees and customers.

Under this agreement, nVidia will acquire certain, specific assets from 3dfx including technology, company and product brands and other assets. In addition, the 3dfx board of directors has recommended to our shareholders the dissolution of the company over the next few months. Until that time, however, 3dfx products will remain available at various retail and online locations, and we will continue to support our current and future customers. For additional information, please see today's press releases and FAQ posted elsewhere on this site.

While we firmly believe this agreement is in the best interest of all involved, we deeply regret these actions. Again, we want to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone one of you who helped 3dfx revolutionize 3D graphics and 3D gaming on the PC. Rest assured, the 3dfx legacy will live on through the combined strengths of these two great companies.

Sincerely,

Scott Sellers
3dfx Founder and CTO

You can also check out the FAQ on the 3dfx sale on NVIDIA's web site.

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posted 12-15- 09:20 PM               

Monopolies lead to poor inovation and excessive profit margins. ATI is no real contender in the high end gaming card market

MicroVidia anyone?

posted 12-15- 10:05 PM               

Son of a fucking bitch.

That sucks large.

We can now say good buy to decent prices. Possibly budget cards also.

ATI is no contender, even if people like the cards they don't like the lack of driver support from prior cards.

I really can't see them inplementing glide support in future cards either.

I really can't see any good coming of this whole deal for the consumer.

posted 12-15- 11:59 PM               

All you lost was "A" single chip manufacturer. There will still be lots of "board" manufacturers. Nvidia doesn't make boards that I remember, just chips.

Yes, the vid chip market got smaller. Yes, the beloved 3dfx logo may never be seen again. But is that alone such a shame? Will not ATI, Creative Labs, Diamond, Radion and other manufacturers still make boards using either Nvidia chips or other chips?

I think more likely what you are upset about is that you are all "dyed to the wool" Voodoo fans and you are upset that the closest competitor now owns the product you adored. Much like I gnash my teeth at the fact that I have to endure four years under a president I loathe, even though he will likely be powerless given the makeup of the houses of congress.

posted 12-16- 12:06 AM               

Werner

posted 12-16- 09:11 AM               

Consolidation like this SAVES the market, MAN! If things like this did not happen, you might see NO 3d cards.

3Dfx could not run their business, if Nvidia did not do this, there would be no more 3dfx - there would be nothing - a hole - the 3dfx technology would just disappear, what a waste that would be.

You are biting the hand that feeds you. Companies are here to server YOU, to think otherwise is ignorant. Price point is what hurts the 3d card market most - to think they want to increase prices shows an ignorance about this market.

Consolidation is the number one way to REDUCE costs.

Few things are monopolies, Apple was the closest. Wasn't 3dfx the one who wanted to exclusively produce their own 3d cards?

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 12-16- 11:28 AM               

That means high prices slower technology rollout and inovation.

Right now intel charges to much for its chips and exserts control over companies that work with it.

Imagine how high the prices would be with out some health compatition from AMD?

I admit that its a good thing that they bought 3dfx instead of 3dfx just folding and loosing all that tech work.

But who says they are going to use it? Glide maybe a dead technology but alot of people still buy voodoo cards for the older games they still play.

Now what will they do when they want a new card to play all the new games taht will still support glide? You really think nvidia is going impliment glide in its new cards? Not me, i really can't see that happing.

Who in the vid card business was still making cards that supported the pci bus for older computer? 3dfx, will nvidia do this now that they bought 3dfx? NO they could be already 3dfx didn't hold the rights to that or nothing, there was nothing stopping them from doing this earlier, and now thats theres no comp why even bother.

Who says nvidia didn't buy 3dfx for the R&D and tech from there to keep it from falling into the wrong hands? Possibly if ATI had bought the 3dfx stuff nvidia would have some comp. Nvidia wouldn't like that would they?

Nvidia could just as easily bury the tech just like another well known company seems to do.

OH yeah and companies aren't there to serve you, they should be if you force them to.

They are there to get your money, THATS IT.
They don't give a shit about anyone, they make a product for the least amount of money and charge the most amount of money that the market will bare, they are in it for the profits.

Now with out 3dfx and since alot of people arn't into ATI cards (like me i have owned them and always been disapointed) there is no comp, why would nvidia strive to meet a decent price point? What are you going to do? Buy a card from another maker?

WHO?

Before I hear this, yes I realized that they only make the chips, but they set the price for those chips, which means they can directly control the end price of the cards.

Yes there will be some comp bettween the different card makers that use the nvidia chips, but not much, possibly less then now. Just trying to make there bundles look better and crap.

"You are biting the hand that feeds you"

WRONG, they are going to bite the hand that feeds them now. You are the one who doesn't understand how it works.

Which way does the money flow? IN to them, hence we are feeding.

I suppose that if consolidation is such a great thing microsoft should buy every company that makes anything for the computer (and now console) market, hardware, software sales and R&D. All those thousands of companies.

By your logic that would mean a better product and price for the consumer RIGHT?

"Wasn't 3dfx the one who wanted to exclusively produce their own 3d cards?"

Yes why is that a bad thing? I don't see you getting mad at ATI even though they do the same thing?

What about ford? shame on them for making engines and wanting to make the car themselves too.

posted 12-16- 04:37 PM            

STMicroelectronics Kyro PowerVR chip based
cards are also interesting from a price/performance point of view.

It would be nice if the D3D renderer in FS:SDOE could be fixed up so it renders properly like the glide renderer, now that
it looks like there won't be any more cards
supporting glide coming out.

posted 12-16- 09:33 PM               

SV, you appear to be overlooking the fact that the main source of innovation is within the chipset itself. What board you put around it is largely immaterial. That's why so many boards with the same chipset are within $10 of each other. Or a better way to put it, there's virtually no difference in performance when using the reference drivers on a cheap board and an expensive board that use the same chipset.

The only difference between boards from different manufacturers is the quality of the drivers. And over time the majority of the performance and stability changes that went into the proprietary drivers make it into the reference drivers. Thus, over time, the difference between boards tends to zero.

There's ATI, who could be a contender, but keep shooting themselves in the foot with poor drivers. Matrox is a longshot, but I get the impression they don't really want to attack anything but the high end market.

posted 12-16- 10:25 PM               

I agree about the chipset being the main area or innovation, but letting other people use your chip set causes quite a but of pressure to keep your prices in check. No one will create a video cards if there is no profit in it, it is that simple. If you can sell me a chip for $1,000 bucks that is 10 ten times better than anything around - I don't care. Price is so key in this market, for people to worry about price hikes is silly in my view.

Worry about driver support, tech support, customer service, and mostly - availability! Can these chips meat demand? Also, like selling the hot toy of the year, will this chip set really solve world hunger and bring about global peace?

Still, with Nvidia and 3dfx allied, there is a door open for other chip sets should they be "innovated" - nothing in this deal closes that door.

posted 12-17- 04:19 AM               

In an ideal world, everybody buys the "best" product, one company makes all the money, gets to take advantage of economies of scale, etc. It can be a very efficient use of resources.

In the real world, there are tradeoffs. Different companies weigh the priorities differently and introduce their products into the market. Different customers have different needs and they evalutate the products compared to their needs. The competitors try to steal as much of the other company's markets as possible.

That market stealing is generally what spurs innovation (except for Microsoft, who uses FUD and loss-leaders to outlive their competitors.) In order for Company A to steal Company B's customers they have to show that they can solve the customers' problems cheaper than the other guy. Company B tries to do what they have been doing for less money. Plus add new stuff without pricing themselves out of the market.

Without any credible competition, the dominant company has little impetus to lower prices in order to keep their borderline customers. Nor to invest much to develop new features. Why should they? What they already have is demonstratibly Good Enough. They've already won.

So it's not so much that nVidia is going to raise prices. What's going to happen is they're not going to lower prices anywhere near as quickly, even though the yield tends to go up over time and therefore cost goes down. They'll be making a big profit. If anyone poses a threat they'll have a huge buffer to dump prices quickly and still make money. Unless the new competitor is really good, he probably runs out of his investment money very quickly and the dominant company plateaus, again.

Over the long haul the customer pays more on average than they probably would have if there was credible competition the entire time.

All the board makers get the same chip for essentially the same price. A board maker can lose customers by over pricing, or by releasing a noticably buggy driver. But there's just not enough product differentiation to attract customers away from their competitors. You end up with a few percent difference in performance from the cheapest board to the most expensive, so there's no need for the customer to purchase the more expensive board. That drives all of the prices to the same place. All of the boards are monotonously the same. The price of the cheapest goes down only slowly because there's no pressure for the chip maker to lower the price of his chip.

So I suppose I can lob this back at you, SV. Why in the world should nVidia lower the prices of their chipsets? What will they gain?

posted 12-17- 04:48 AM               

Nvidia's competition is weak, yes - but the battle ( so called ) between 3DFx and Nvidia made them both very competitive, and both had their feet in the door. The others had to struggle, re-inventing the wheel while still staying within the parameters of the profession. ( Appealing to the software developers and to M$ ). Now, it seems ( and I may be wrong ) that much of the talent at 3DFx will soon be free to choose new avenues. Nvidia will likely take some of them, but some may migrate to Matrox, or others, just for the challenge. After all, isn't that what makes this industry so popular right now...the challenge? Ok, the terms are apparently pretty clear on what 3DFx had to agree to do and not to do....but that doesn't mean one or two of their personnel might not have developed a idea or project or two of their own which, while not necessarily part of the 3DFx future technology still might have found it's way into the public. And it still might, over at Matrox or ATI or who knows?

It is a subjective variable, but something which can come about from a deal such as this. Yes, it could lead to a lot of legal hassles, but even MS couldn't avoid those. What I hope is that the drive Nvidia had to succeed over what many consider a superior rival will remain, and even be forced upon them by card makers who need to sell cards to make money. Plus, this may in effect 'narrow' the competition gap; others, no longer having to compete with 2 strong rivals, may make greater gains, creating new choices for consumers and software companies alike.

I'd like to believe it; of course, I was going to wait for the production of the Nv20 chip and resultant price rollbacks to get a new vid card; but after the news, I went out and got it now.

LOL - hope, but no faith!

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nealg=FC=

posted 12-17- 05:16 AM               

But the main point is that there's no credible competition in the immediate future. That give nVidia the opportunity to keep prices propped up while they're lowering their costs. Whichever of those scenarios plays out, nVidia will be in a strong position to outlast any of them.

The hope for the consumer would be that the new competitor would be revolutionary enough to grab a significant piece of the market in a short time. But it turns out it's a bad business plan that relies on "...doing something nobody else has ever thought of!" It's rare for an idea to be so off the wall that nobody else has considered it.

posted 12-17- 01:09 PM               

I have always stayed in markets that have acceptable margins. A healthy market is better for both consumers and customers.

Business is 90% of running a company, products and such are just little annoyances

Company A can take product X and fail, while company B can make a fortune off product X. Some of the worst companies that I have partnered with have had the best products/ideas! They are no longer here to tell their story... Likewise, most of the businesses that I have been involved with do a great job selling a terrible product/idea. Not that the product was bad really, just the market - a poor market, from a business point of view this is just like pushing a bad product heheh.

People worry way too much about competition. It is really VERY hard to be succesful even with absolutly NO competition, few people relize this. Quite frankly, if your business plan shows no competetion, you probably will not get funded. No competition means either great luck, or much more likly, an unhealthy/poor market. You do not keep your investors happy by eliminating your competition, you keep them happy by beating your competition!

I think your view of how Microsoft runs its business is incorrect, and does not explain why they do the things that they do. But I do not understand their consumer business model, only thier enterprise solutions business model - so I might be missing something there.

posted 12-17- 02:10 PM            

ITS HAPPENED, ITS CHANGE, ITS GONNA BRING IN A COMPETITOR FROM WHERE YOU WON'T EXPECT IT!

posted 12-17- 03:13 PM               

I read a news blurb yesterday that is in a way related to this; Intel announced this week that it has developed a new process, that will result in - get this - a 10 Ghz processor running at 1 volt. That in itself is not so special - the announcement that they expect this to be ready by 2005 is the kicker. Ok, I figure that is a ploy; the idea may be there indeed, but AMD's success in competing...could this be the reason for the announcment? To see if AMD has similar, or to force them into making a move that might make them vulnerable? I highly doubt that a 10Ghz processor will be available to the average consumer in 2005, but considering all that's happened in the last 5 years, who knows?

The point I so poorly make is: Intel may indeed have this as a possibility. But AMD's presence ( just check latest PIV prices and AMD 1.2G CPU prices ) may be the reason they announced this now. Otherwise, why even mention it? Both companies announced losses for Q4 2000...these prices cannot stay so low. So, investments have to be one reason; future contracts another. Whatever, it is a plus for me, as the consumer, right now. Without AMD's presence, Intel could still just sit and develop, but slowly, and we would all still be running P 100 to 200 and paying huge prices for them.

It is just a analogy, but one that gets stuck in my head in this situation. In truth, it gives me a headache, hehe. Think I'll go blow up some bad guys in NOLF.

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nealg=FC=

posted 12-17- 04:16 PM               

I believe Matrox has had a bit of an identity crisis. They've tried to get some boards into the OEM market, and I think they did okay for awhile with the Millenium line. They've also had some of the pricier boards out there. I'm not certain where their focus is.

And I believe 3dfx and nVidia were paired up pretty much directly against each other. Trying to land juicy OEM deals while at the same time trying to gain mindshare with the hard-core and early adopter markets.

While the 3dfx buy-out might hurt our small special interest market, there's still a lot of competition in related markets. So while this won't be the death-knell for innovation in 3D, we probably will see slower progress in gee whiz features. Features that many people look at once in the demo, then turn off in order to increase their frame rate. :-)

SV, your comments are thought-provoking. I agree with you, that a big part of the issue is figuring out what the market can support. I think it could have continued to support multiple companies, but I think 3dfx got behind the 8-ball. Every card they've produced since the first Voodoo has basically been a minor variation on the Voodoo engine. They had the early lead and for practical purposes created the market, then nVidia blew by them. 3dfx never really did anything to counter nVidia besides do the same chip faster.

posted 12-17- 09:03 PM               

My impression is that Nvidia's products are marketed better - the specs always "feel" better and they seem to keep things exciting. Meanwhile, the 3dfx cards just look way better - and I always see better frame rates and smoother play with them. My Voodoo5 is real nice.

posted 12-17- 10:33 PM            

They got greedy when they bought STB and decided to make their own boards. That, coupled with the long delay of the Voodoo5 boards caused their downfall. nVidia products are just too good.

I have no love lost for 3dfx. Glide was a shitty API that still haunts games today...SDOE, Unreal Tournament, etc. I hate to see them go though....the competition thing. Even though I would never buy another 3dfx based product (a v2 12meg being my last purchase) they were good to keep nVidia in check. Now the prices of cards may very well not drop as fast. But, with only one major player left now, (ATI is so-so) things should stablize on the technology front. (or I am assuming). So maybe that is a good thing. - hopefully

posted 12-18- 07:10 AM               

Will the retailers dump stocks of the old Voodoo cards and if they do, will they be worth spending money on!

I agree with a lot of what Mighty has said on the general impact on the market of the loss of 3DFX as an entity. We now have to trust that Nvidia cares more about the gamer than it's profits alone, and that products will be realistically priced and developed. I can't afford a £200 top fligth graphics card. I can't afford a £100 budget Nvidia card of Voodoo 4/5 truth be told...

I wan't to bin my PCI voodoo2 in favour of something AGP, now I have a board that supports AGP. If there is a chance of me personally benefitting from this, GOOD. Selfish, but hey! Business is business. Companies win, companies lose. It's happened and wont change.....not even from re-counts or Supreme Court rulings. 3DFX is done.

So, if retailers dump stock, to repopulate their shelf space with Nvidia based stock, panicked by loss of driver support etc. will I be able to pick up a cheap card, better than my current one, for very little money! Or do I need to organise a nice little bank-job to raise the funds to buy a GeForce.....

p.s.

Competition keeps the market serving the customer. Take that away, and you have Microshaft all over again. How many Windows users chose their OS? It is on the PC when you buy it....the software companies assume you have it......this happens because there is no large scale competition ( sorry Linux users...but you tend to be knowledgable computer enthusiasts and run dual boot systems anyway...)

If Nvidia keeps prices high and doesn't respect the market....DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT!

posted 12-18- 01:53 PM               

So, tech advances just for the sake of advancing mean next to nothing to me; tech advances that are affordable, that is what matters to me. In a way, the death of Glide was more earth shaking than this sale, but Nvidia did a heck of a job with their technology. I give them that. I agree with many that 3DFX's attempt to get into the card producing end with the purchase of STB was what sounded their death knell; but in truth, may have just hastened it.

We can only see; I expect Nvidia will continue to be innovative, but more leisurely, and less likely to target the economy market. In truth, we are all just speculating, though; perhaps little will change.

BTW...I spent about 150 dollars on the MX card; I consider that ludicrously high. I also think 2 dollars for a gallon of gas or 3 dollars for a beer in a club to be robbery. Hehe...that is just me. I haven't agreed with any price increases since 1968! I'd gladly go back to working for 2 dollars per hour if they bring back 10 cent sodas and gas at 15 cents per gallon! LOL

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nealg=FC=