It’s nice to see passion in a vendor. With the ramp to Windows Vista I’m recalling the Windows 95 launch and how much excitement there was on the Microsoft campus. Since that time, outside of Apple events, it has been hard to find the kind of excitement where people are actually cheering a product announcement from anyone in the tech segment.

That is probably because, outside of Steve Jobs, it is often hard to find executives who can stand up in front of an audience and make the products a star. I had hopes that HP’s Carly Fiorina would eventually grow to become that kind of an executive but she seemed to be more interested in being the star and her star clearly faded over time. Last week Nvidia stepped up to this plate and hit one out of the park and that passion is worth talking about this week.

In addition, I moderated at Via’s first Couples and Gaming conference and learned a great deal about how to get women into gaming. This was particularly useful to me because, like many of you, my significant other thinks gaming is a waste of time and it would be great if I could get her addicted too. I’ll share what I learned at that event as well.

Nvidia’s Power Play

After the AMD/ATI merger announcement I was thinking Nvidia was the company that had been left standing after the music stopped in a game of musical chairs. Intel was signaling they were going to ramp their own graphics unit and both AMD and Intel were talking about making traditionally separate graphics and processing systems obsolete by combining them in a future offering. Nvidia apparently, and fortunately, missed that meeting and showcased what made them into the market leader by releasing what is likely the most powerful Windows Vista Premium Ready hardware on the planet. The Geforce 8800 and nForce 600 are impressive pieces of hardware with more sheer performance than anything else currently on the market. In addition they are the first Vista optimized parts (supporting DirectX 10)which, as many of you pointed out after my Vista piece, makes them uniquely qualified to be favored for those that want to buy hardware now and install Microsoft’s next generation OS when it is ready next year.

Nvidia’s Geforce 8800 GTX and GTS in pictures ...

As each product was introduced it was met by cheers from the gamers who filled the audience and the realism associated with human modeling was simply stunning. Many have thought it virtually impossible to model people realistically this decade and Nvidia clearly put those folks on notice that realistic human modeling was not only probably this decade, but that it was possible this year.

It is interesting to note that two PC brands stood out at the event with rows upon rows of branded PCs. What made this particularly interesting was that the two were Dell and Alienware and I don’t think there was a gamer present that wasn’t lusting heavily after both products. I personally just love that new Dell XPS 700 case and seeing that many in one place gave me serious PC envy.

What was also interesting was that while we expected Intel and Nvidia to be very close at the event, there was AMD - and nor Intel - on stage. In fact, at the end it melted into an Nvidia/AMD love fest, which turned out really well for a couple of sad gamers who both companies had taken pity on.

It seems like one of them couldn’t even afford a case and the other was running hardware that probably would have been old last decade and admitted that his girl friend had a vastly better rig. (Getting your butt whomped by your girl friend has to be the ultimate in humiliation). Both were given new AMD/Nvidia based quad-core Quadzillas and I doubt there were many who didn’t envy them for their prizes.

It’s nice to see passion in an industry that doesn’t see enough of it and I’ve been convinced that others can do what Apple does twice a year. I appreciated Nvidia proving that point.

Getting the Girl - err- Woman into Gaming

As I mentioned at the start, one of the interesting things I did last week was attend a conference on Couples and Gaming. We had a number of men and women gamers tell how they engaged their significant other in gaming. Virtually all found it not only rewarding but it actually helped forge a bond between them that was much stronger than it would have been otherwise.

They told stories of how one would often rescue the other, though it was clear the women enjoyed rescuing the men a great deal more than the other way around because they could give their guys grief about it afterwards. Part of the discussion surrounded the psychological need, in times where so few couples have time for each other, to find couples time. Gaming together, if only for an hour or two, was filling that need. That established the reason why more couples should be gaming, but doesn’t address how to get your favorite female on your favorite game.

The big advice for the afternoon was about how women learn. Men typically learn by doing, while women learn by watching. While guys will generally pick up a controller, women typically find that embarrassing and simply won’t participate, if they have to fail a lot before finding success. Virtually no games provide adequate tutorials to women, which explains why there, in comparison, so few female gamers. It is interesting to note that not only do women, when trained, like the same games as men do, but - head to head - they often win contests, which showcases their ability to be more cautious and focused on learning a map. Quite frequently, female players may be superior at a broad cross section of games than their more aggressive male counterparts. One rather funny, and painful, demonstration focused on why women often don’t like female characters. This is not because the women were well endowed. Women actually liked that, but it was because women were portrayed as if they were sexually aroused. When the audience was shown men in the same semi-aroused state, the men in the audience started squirming in their seats suggesting the differences weren’t all that great between the sexes.

Overall I learned a lot and still hope for the day my wife and I can game together.

Rob Enderle is principal analyst for the Enderle Group. He can be reached at renderle@enderlegroup.com.

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