Na de plotselinge geruchten gisteren over het feit dat 3dfx zou stoppen met het maken van grafische kaarten om zich weer te gaan concentreren op de chips heeft The Register nu wat duidelijkere informatie voor ons. 3dfx gaat inderdaad de fabriek in Mexico verkopen, maar dat is slechts om geld uit te sparen. Het plan is namelijk om de productie van videokaarten uit te besteden aan een aantal partners, om met lagere kosten toch de eigen merknaam te behouden. Voorlopig zullen we dus nog geen 3dfx chips zien op kaarten van bijvoorbeeld Creative:
Certainly, 3dfx's clarified strategy makes more sense than the complete about-face apparently signalled t'other day, allowing as it does 3dfx to continue to leverage the power of the Voodoo brand and to maintain its distribution channels. It will also allow it to respond more quickly to changing patterns of demand in the retail market.
[...] The snag here is that both ATI and Nvidia are targeting these areas very aggressively. ATI has its system-on-a-chip operation, and Nvidia has the expertise gained through its partnership with Acer Labs. 3dfx has its powerful, bandwidth-minimising Gigapixel technology, but that's not due until its next-but-one generation of graphics chip, codenamed Mosiac. Rampage, the successor to the VSA-100 (and thanks to everyone who put us right on this one yesterday), comes first, and it will be interesting to see what it can offer potential customers in these emerging markets.