Perhaps later, but in the meantime, I really would like to know about the rest of the graphics industry?

Vito: I don't hold out much hope for anyone but ATI, S3, and Nvidia, these days. Intel is squeezing the PC graphics market by marketing lower cost integrated solutions to its OEMs, and tying up the market in the retail sector with inferior 3D. That's the short hand of Intel's strategy, which makes sense because, they reckon the consumer's only interested in the CPU numbers anyhow. In addition, corporate buyers have shown a thorough disregard for 3D performance except in the unusual case of the PC workstation market, but that is far removed from the mainstream market. I believe that in the past you have been rather generous to the industry, and assumed that there would be at least five brand names leading the pack, but I see only three, and the rest is inconsequential. I'm afraid that 3dfx will be one of the less important companies in the PC graphics arena. However, they will continue to be of importance in the next eighteen months because, the PC industry is going to have play a little bit of a hype war with Sony over PlayStation 2. So, expect to see a lot of PC machismo with a "my graphics is better than your graphics" kind of attitude from 3dfx, and Nvidia, in particular. That should maintain OEM, retail, and investor enthusiasm for 3dfx for the next eighteen months, but towards the end of next year, I think the business is going to belong to just three companies, as I said over twenty years ago.

What about the ....

Vito: The X-box?

Yes, yes, the X-box. That's amazing. Just what I was thinking.

Vito: I know. Doomed to failure as anything but a marketing concept, although it will probably convince the PC OEMs to put more effort into packaging a consumer, game oriented 3D machine. That means, even the higher performance gaming platforms will probably become closed boxes; better components, perhaps with an X-box tag, but just a closed box PC, nevertheless. That's why, essentially, you won't see any more than a handful of players. Economies of scale are going to be terribly important to ensure a graphics chip company can deliver quantity, quality, and pricing. 3dfx is losing a marketing CEO to get an operational leader that can position them for this business model. You know, now that I think of it, I've got some pretty interesting things to say about Demi and Bruce, too. Very unpleasant to see them separating like that.