This makes complete sense. Android gaming wasn't progressing as Nvidia would've liked even though they've put quite a bit of resources into it before (Tegra/Shield Zone), so they figure they will have to do the heavy lifting like they did with Portal and HL2.
Also starts tying into their GameWorks efforts. It makes you wonder how long it will be before they start looking at 1st party titles on any one of their gaming platforms (PC, Android, GRID streaming).
It's completely non-sense from the get-go with Tegra/Shield crap. Why Nvidia goes through all the trouble to port old/low-quality/out-dated PC games and Android games that designed for mobile to Shield crap. Isn't Ouya and many cheap chinese STB already done that?
Isn't much easier to ask Intel or AMD for a helping hand with their low power/cost APU and put it in mini-box or mini-PC, then call it something like mini-Shield. In that way, not PC games port necessary, Android ready, streaming, run Win10, linux, productives work, and many more. And it probably end up a lot cheaper that Tegra/Shield crap.
Yes you obviously don't get it. Nvidia doesn't want to rely on AMD or Intel as that defeats the entire purpose of creating their own platform. The fastest/easiest way to get there was to use Android, but Android's gaming ecosystem is devoid of traditional gaming titles, its flash/mobile games. They want to bridge this gap and Android/Shield provides them the platform to do this, as they can leverage both their existing PC dominance with GameStream, while offering a new feature and revenue source with GRID streaming, with the 3rd avenue they need to develop which is native Android gaming.
You can buy a Shield Android TV that comes with EVERYTHING you need for $200 that offers far more than you can with anything Intel/AMD based, even a Celeron based NUC, I know this for a fact because I've actually built one. The best value you'll find is something like the Alienware Alpha but that starts at $400 with a coupon discount.
Most games haven't sold >20mil units total (most far below this, even popular titles), and there are a BILLION users on mobile. This should be simple math for you. Nearly a billion people have probably never played some of the greatest games of all time and a LOT of them aged quite well and run great on android today (especially as everyone moves to 14nm and X1 level gpus, or at worst 10nm Q1 2017+). Shortly you will have a billion+ users capable of running games without much optimization effort on these devices.
Even if NV makes their ports TEGRA only for say a year, then allows others to get them as 10nm comes (for example) they can still easily make back whatever they invest now to push their shield/grid platform devices (and a cheaper platform for GPU discrete sales). The whole point IMHO is to get a huge catalog over there to at some point put out a 50-100w soc in a FULL PC like box with options for discrete NV cards. NO WINTEL at all, and running Vulkan etc games. They will be able to charge a mild premium for their socs then, but seriously undercut Intel/AMD and sell more gpus to a market that can't afford the INTEL/WINDOWS fees. At some point along the way in android's life we'll see REAL apps follow the game devs over to android 64bit and then the full fruits of this "Android/Linux PC BOX" come to life. Developing countries (and everyone else) would be able to buy the full PC box like experience with no $100 windows fee and no Intel $200-350 chip fee (drop this from $50-200 for low to high-end instead of $100-350). NV isn't alone in coming for this box either, just in the best position with the gpu side for top end gaming already covered.
This would not have been possible just 5-10yrs ago (look at linux, no UNITS so no devs). With the success of android and now Vulkan coming up (and new engines easily ported, and valve doing the legwork on linux ports massively) you have a perfect opportunity to migrate from mobile to full desktop with all the fun you'd expect in a PC experience but without the $200+ premium for a WINTEL box. They are going to do on android what LINUX versions on a WINTEL box couldn't do themselves. The sheer unit sales of 1.5B+ on mobile (and growing) yearly already have gotten 1/2 of the devs to commit already. See GDC 2014/2015 surveys, only PC tops mobile and BARELY, consoles are FAR behind mobile/pc support. So we'll have two competing platforms soon (apple will just remain where they are, ~10% of PC, but even they are trying to DROP Intel).
I'm sure NV and the rest of ARM soc vendors wouldn't mind taking a chunk of Intel's $60B revenue and charging $150-200 for top end 50-100w socs, at least for a while until they control more share and up the price...LOL. They have a LOT of friends helping out here too. Google, Samsung, Valve (hates windows/directX), Qcom, ARM etc (all pushing android/linux & ARM in some way), not to mention game devs who like easy porting. You could have a box with 3-4 free operating systems in a multi-boot giving the user a ton of software options on ARM's side. Think SteamOS (ported to arm), Linux (pick one, Ubuntu?), Android etc on one box with all the software they bring and with discrete cards from NV is desired. Nvidia will of course try to push gameworks titles as much as possible all along the way to differentiate their products from the rest of ARM's armada.
Linux up from 200 games just a few years ago and everyone thought it was stupid then (now top titles coming on it, witcher 3, wasteland2, AOW3 etc). Do the same thing on android for the most popular games from any other platform (console/pc etc) and you can have a very desirable box right? NV just needs to port every popular game they can as fast as they can while making sure to break even or so, then let the market take over making new IP on unreal4/unity5 etc that fully uses their hardware.
You don't seem to get the BIG picture. Think 5-10yrs out. Cuda might have seemed stupid in year ONE also. But 8yrs later they own 80% of the workstation market, are in 200+ major apps, taught in 500+ universities etc and has led to major profits for NV over that time (while AMD lost $7B in the last 15yrs, 6 of it in the last 12yrs). OpenCL is light-years behind.
One more point, ouya etc is MILES behind X1, which is 2x faster than xbox360/ps3 basically overall. The quality of games that will be made to FULLY take advantage of X1 and forward (14nm version coming in mere months for xmas stuff) will blow away old Xbox360/ps3 titles. Port like mad until everyone amps up some more and you are selling 1B+ units that are ALL far more powerful than xbox360/ps3. Think about the next gen using HBM for this Billion+ units. It's a 10-15yr plan to destroy WINTEL, not nonsense. The boxes you're talking about don't have much of a gaming experience which is why they're basically dead (ouya being sold off, can't survive).
Make your wall of text summary....As node shrink (<10nm + HBM), there isn't a needed for the Shield device or platform, as high-end x86 SoC no longer handicapped in power limitation. Think of PS5/XB-two can fixed in a tablet, mini-box or even smartphone. Why port when PC, Consoles, Android, Linux game and many can run native?
Cuda was great as proprietary, but that was history. Today, I can't find a single Nvidia GPU in the world most popular company, APPLE. The last time I looked, the world greenest super computer, isn't have any of Nvida product in it. And, the world most powerful GPU in single/double precision isn't make by NV.
Speaking of history....here is some achievement regrading Tegra SoC. ...Tegra was entered smartphone market then called it quits after a few years ...Tegra made noise in WindowsRT then silently exited without explanation. ...Tegra + Icera combo promised to unseat Snapdragon then JHH shutted it down called it quits ...Tegra again made noise in Google Tango Project then called it quits ...Now again, Tegra is making noise with the Shield platform...You see the patterns here....will call it quits and let poor customers holding a bag.
Not very sure your assumptions about this are correct. Nvidia is selling next to nothing in mobile and right now it seems that TX1 is too hot for even tabs. The TV box won't sell well at all and Nvidia seems to have given up on Android outside cars for at least the next few years. Now if this is to port games for w/e they are using for GRID or for a Linux on ARM desktop OS ( guess that one could even be Android based), it would seem more likely.
the tv box will sell well because it's the only set top box that can stream 4k. only netflix certified device.. only device with HDMI 2.0, only device with wide color gamut.
you sjust listed 4 things people understand nothing about.
A gaming device for the living room has success if 12 years old recognize the brand and want it. This is a huge gamble by nvidia and I'm skeptical. But maybe they'll win, who knows.
you know, people like you have been saying "wont sell many shield devices" for the past 3 years, and calling it all a niche market,, but all i know is Nvidia keeps making them, and people are buying them.
see it to believe it right? i guess all those amazon reviews and newegg reviews are free review units given away..
apple better play nice and start using Nvidia GPU's in their products again... Everyone wants Nvidia Discrete gpu's in their iMac's, Mac Pro's and Retina Macbook Pro's, however apple likes their margins more than their customers wishes.
if they return to nvidia gpu. OR AT THE VERY LEAST, offer Nvidia Build to order options, then more games will continue to get ported. I think Nvidia's purchase killed 2 birds with 1 stone.. Get more tech for porting games to android, whilst gaining leverage on apple.
Correct. Apple wants to kill CUDA and nvidia does not want to support OpenCL as much as Apple would wish. Apple made OpenCL the center of OSX regarding professional workload so nvidia is out of the question.
People who depend on CUDA applications will just go to a different platform. Most of these people are professionals who need to get work down and would have no problem dumping Apple for Windows or Linux workstations.
Did he mean that? Even if so, why would they want to? In order to kill CUDA in their walled garden they need to restrict their users' continuous access to NVIDIA GPUs. That seems to mean going long stretches of time without offering NVIDIA GPUs, which in turn seems like mostly choosing AMD over NVIDIA. So in order to avoid becoming tied to NVIDIA by their users' wishes, they end up becoming a bit tied to AMD instead, in opposition to some of their users' wishes. Not sure it is a great strategy. I think more likely, they don't care about compute very much at all in their walled garden. They like to make purchases in bulk and play suppliers against each other. They chose AMD this round because AMD offered them a better deal. Much like the console supply competition, AMD was willing to sell their chips for less than NVIDIA was.
No, no and no. The biggest reason for the AMD choice was OpenCL performance. AMD has supported OpenCL from the start - it's not like they had any choice seeing nvidia started their own thing with CUDA. Apple made OpenCL the center of their compute efforts. nvidia's OpenCL support is crap compared to AMD. The macpro trashcan has great OpenCL performance in OpenCL optimized programs(like Apple's Final Cut), but with AMD cards. Nvidia is bullish about CUDA, their cards are literally designed around CUDA cores.
The low price is an afterthought. Anyway, Apple made a major compromise putting a 3yr old GPU in the 15" MBP and asking 2500$ for it.
What possible value could AMD give to Apple? Just inferior / equal technology that they already have full access to. I see zero benefit from buying AMD, since they couldn't use their CPU's anyway without big performance regression compared to current Intels (except maybe in mac mini).
Nvidia on the other hand has arguably way better GPU-technology that would be much more suitable to Apple's computers than the chips that Apple currently buys from AMD.
Nvidia might even have some valuable GPU tech for the mobile, since newest Nvidia SOC seem to have competitive GPU parts compared to the PVR-tech Apple licenses at the moment. Afaik AMD has nothing worth noting for mobile.
Maxwell in Mac's would arguably be much better than what AMD to offer (better perf/w and Apple is perf/w limited in all of their HW designs).
I don't see Apple buying Nvidia, but I think that they at least would benefit from it. I don't see any benefit from buying AMD what so ever. Not that AMD would costs anything for them since AMD market cap is just few weeks worth of profits for Apple. Nvidia market cap is at least a bit over quarter's worth of profits.
No one makes investments such as buying other big company based on products today. For future AMD works on HSA alone looks to me more interesting than anything NV can offer.
You don't buy other company to slap their piece in your system – it's all about tight integration of technologies. And it looks like no one wants to integrate NV tech but OpenPOWER foundation. Remember when NV announced that their "superior" Maxwell technology is available for licensing for mobile? Who went with them? No one.
Nvidia has slightly better GPU tech. AMD cards are still quite competitive. And that's just at the moment. The advantage can easily turn around from one generation to the next (it has in the past).
Apple couldn't just buy Nvidia, would be a massive poison pill that even their $700 market cap wouldn't be able to digest. Nvidia would end up way overvalued at like $50Bn or something if Apple tried a hostile takeover.
And as we've seen, gross overvaluation can lead to eventual problems long-term (see AMD acq. of ATI).
Why would they even want to buy Nvidia anyway? They can already buy their products. It doesn't make any real sense that Apple would even be interested in getting into the business of making graphics chips. They already arguably can make better mobile chips in house.
I could actually see a purchase of AMD as being more likely, but even there there's no real point to it.
No, Apple wants the 'know how' to breathe the Metal stuffs into their ecosystem since all these crazy low level API pops out like flu. Nvidia can't give Apple that knowledge but AMD can. That's AMD bargains for the next several years and of course the large margin.
@Morawka. Agreed, its been a headache for our Mac users with all these driver branches due to the hardware change from Nvidia back to AMD, but its most likely costs and politics driving the decisions. Apple wants OpenCL to succeed and Nvidia is obviously pushing CUDA, so I imagine they will continue to be at odds.
Apple has an interest in encouraging their users to use OpenCL rather than CUDA because it allows Apple more choice and better bargaining power. But they can do nothing to kill CUDA even if they wanted to. Choosing AMD now because CUDA is not an option for AMD GPUs is preemptively reducing their choice in order to prevent the loss of choice later. It may affect their decisions but it makes no sense for it to be an avoid NVIDIA at all costs policy.
The real loser if Nvidia is successful in building Android gaming will be Microsoft. There are already extremely few reasons why Android wouldn't work as a desktop OS.
But we're already seeing that. First from third parites such as Samsung and now possibly system wide in "M". It will probably be tiling but I'm sure they could do stacking windows if they wanted. This is probably the largest step they need though.
I'm not talking about what is. I'm talking about what could be. And the gamers part was the predication of the suggestion. There are only the two big desktop graphics players and of the two Nvidia is arguably the stronger these days. So yes, Nvidia putting its shoulder into building up Android gaming should be a point of worry in Redmond.
And Android's terrible problem with lagging, and instability.
As much as we love to hate Windows, I hardly ever switch my work PC off, I virtually never have problem with apps crashing or memory issues. Now I wish I could say the same for my android and iOS devices. If Microsoft gets Windows 10 right, I will be going full windows
Oh my Gawd. SONY AND MICROSOFT> HEAR ME AND MOST OF US PC GAMERS
we already have a computer that is more than capable of playing your games. so it doesn't make sense for us to buy a PS4 or XB1 and why should we?
All you need to do is. sell the PS4 operating system install it as a dual boot option or emulate it in windows. Heck you could charge a Subscription fee. but you get the Operating System free to use and Xbox is DX 12. so that will run in windows easy. so I dont see the problem
I wonder, why nvidia does not invest in low level technology like a complete game engine to sell (or even give for free) to developers. Doing so allows them to give more bias to the strong points of their own architecture. Of course that will not be good for concurrents, though some extras could just be made optional to allow other architectures to work decently, but with almost 80% of the game market, nvidia can (and should) do that.
Reading "NVIDIA acquires" always makes me cringe. "There goes another piece of tech to become completely closed and exclusive to NVIDIA hardware," I think.
Still, in this case far as I know Transgaming wasn't really doing that much with this tech in recent years, so it's not like it will be a big loss. I can certainly see the benefits for both parties. I just hope than NVIDIA will use this tech to help Android games in general and not only Tegra devices.
PhysX was always exclusive to PhysX hardware before NVIDIA bought it, was it not? 3dfx technology was exclusive to 3dfx. The Icera softmodem was sold to whomever wants to use it after NVIDIA bought it just like before, I think. You seem be giving a strange impression that you believe all other companies give all their stuff away as if they have some sort of altruistic and communal business spirit and NVIDIA is a big, bad, greedy wolf.
NVIDIA has no interest in helping Android games unless they can make money by doing so, and neither does any other company. The market will dictate what strategy they choose to use. That's not to say that some companies might not make different decisions in a particular instance than another. But you can be almost certain that if AMD had 75% market share and a technological advantage they'd be doing what they could to profit from that advantage, and NVIDIA in turn would be forced to make their solutions more open so that enough people would pay attention to them.
PhysX was exclusive to PhysX hardware, but that hardware could run alongside any card. If I could buy a cheap NVIDIA card and stick it in an AMD system to get PhsyX, that would be fine, but NVIDIA doesn't allow that. NVIDIA sticks to closed tech, and provides bad support for open one (like OpenCL). AMD contributes a lot more to open projects and standards.
Similarly with Android, NVIDIA always had exclusives for its Tegra hardware. They don't compete on features or performance, they compete by throwing money at developers, for both PC and Android, to tie their games into the NVIDIA ecosystem.
And yes, that's business, but I can still root for companies I feel are less predatory. Just because something makes good business doesn't mean it's good for consumers.
(And for the record most of my PC's have NVIDIA hardware in them, as well as my Nexus 7 2012, which my kids now use.)
"There goes another piece of tech to become completely closed and exclusive to NVIDIA hardware," I think.
And, you hate nvidia, you hate their hardware, you love amd, and amd would never, ever, ever, ever have any exclusive intellectual property. They swore they loved you, and you love them, and neither of you can do any wrong, and certainly not any wrong that evil nvidia has done a thousand times worse and a thousand times more often. nvidia needs to be forcibly disbanded by the governments of world before they destroy all innovation and humanity itself.
I agree with you, transgender was a great totally open source company that anyone could download, then came the devil.
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WorldWithoutMadness - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Now, If you were to port old games like Uncharted Waters from Koei or Sid Meier's oldies. I'm pretty much sold!StevoLincolnite - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
I bought a cheap chinese 7" 720P "gamepad" with a Rockchip+Mali 400 soc, 2Gb of ram and... Dual analogue sticks etc'.I am running Windows DOS based games like Master of Orion 2, Dungeon Keeper, Sid Meier's Civilization...
Shame I cannot get a similar device that runs a full-blown copy of Windows, I would be all over that like flies to poop... All those Windows games!
Peichen - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
Yes, Uncharted Waters: New Horizons aka Daikoukai Jidai II, the best game ever.chizow - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
This makes complete sense. Android gaming wasn't progressing as Nvidia would've liked even though they've put quite a bit of resources into it before (Tegra/Shield Zone), so they figure they will have to do the heavy lifting like they did with Portal and HL2.Also starts tying into their GameWorks efforts. It makes you wonder how long it will be before they start looking at 1st party titles on any one of their gaming platforms (PC, Android, GRID streaming).
prieye - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
It's completely non-sense from the get-go with Tegra/Shield crap. Why Nvidia goes through all the trouble to port old/low-quality/out-dated PC games and Android games that designed for mobile to Shield crap. Isn't Ouya and many cheap chinese STB already done that?Isn't much easier to ask Intel or AMD for a helping hand with their low power/cost APU and put it in mini-box or mini-PC, then call it something like mini-Shield. In that way, not PC games port necessary, Android ready, streaming, run Win10, linux, productives work, and many more. And it probably end up a lot cheaper that Tegra/Shield crap.
chizow - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Yes you obviously don't get it. Nvidia doesn't want to rely on AMD or Intel as that defeats the entire purpose of creating their own platform. The fastest/easiest way to get there was to use Android, but Android's gaming ecosystem is devoid of traditional gaming titles, its flash/mobile games. They want to bridge this gap and Android/Shield provides them the platform to do this, as they can leverage both their existing PC dominance with GameStream, while offering a new feature and revenue source with GRID streaming, with the 3rd avenue they need to develop which is native Android gaming.You can buy a Shield Android TV that comes with EVERYTHING you need for $200 that offers far more than you can with anything Intel/AMD based, even a Celeron based NUC, I know this for a fact because I've actually built one. The best value you'll find is something like the Alienware Alpha but that starts at $400 with a coupon discount.
TheJian - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
Most games haven't sold >20mil units total (most far below this, even popular titles), and there are a BILLION users on mobile. This should be simple math for you. Nearly a billion people have probably never played some of the greatest games of all time and a LOT of them aged quite well and run great on android today (especially as everyone moves to 14nm and X1 level gpus, or at worst 10nm Q1 2017+). Shortly you will have a billion+ users capable of running games without much optimization effort on these devices.Even if NV makes their ports TEGRA only for say a year, then allows others to get them as 10nm comes (for example) they can still easily make back whatever they invest now to push their shield/grid platform devices (and a cheaper platform for GPU discrete sales). The whole point IMHO is to get a huge catalog over there to at some point put out a 50-100w soc in a FULL PC like box with options for discrete NV cards. NO WINTEL at all, and running Vulkan etc games. They will be able to charge a mild premium for their socs then, but seriously undercut Intel/AMD and sell more gpus to a market that can't afford the INTEL/WINDOWS fees. At some point along the way in android's life we'll see REAL apps follow the game devs over to android 64bit and then the full fruits of this "Android/Linux PC BOX" come to life. Developing countries (and everyone else) would be able to buy the full PC box like experience with no $100 windows fee and no Intel $200-350 chip fee (drop this from $50-200 for low to high-end instead of $100-350). NV isn't alone in coming for this box either, just in the best position with the gpu side for top end gaming already covered.
This would not have been possible just 5-10yrs ago (look at linux, no UNITS so no devs). With the success of android and now Vulkan coming up (and new engines easily ported, and valve doing the legwork on linux ports massively) you have a perfect opportunity to migrate from mobile to full desktop with all the fun you'd expect in a PC experience but without the $200+ premium for a WINTEL box. They are going to do on android what LINUX versions on a WINTEL box couldn't do themselves. The sheer unit sales of 1.5B+ on mobile (and growing) yearly already have gotten 1/2 of the devs to commit already. See GDC 2014/2015 surveys, only PC tops mobile and BARELY, consoles are FAR behind mobile/pc support. So we'll have two competing platforms soon (apple will just remain where they are, ~10% of PC, but even they are trying to DROP Intel).
I'm sure NV and the rest of ARM soc vendors wouldn't mind taking a chunk of Intel's $60B revenue and charging $150-200 for top end 50-100w socs, at least for a while until they control more share and up the price...LOL. They have a LOT of friends helping out here too. Google, Samsung, Valve (hates windows/directX), Qcom, ARM etc (all pushing android/linux & ARM in some way), not to mention game devs who like easy porting. You could have a box with 3-4 free operating systems in a multi-boot giving the user a ton of software options on ARM's side. Think SteamOS (ported to arm), Linux (pick one, Ubuntu?), Android etc on one box with all the software they bring and with discrete cards from NV is desired. Nvidia will of course try to push gameworks titles as much as possible all along the way to differentiate their products from the rest of ARM's armada.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=&s...
2300+ steamos+linux games. Again growing fast.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2824526/steam-for-l...
Was a mere 700 ~1yr ago..WOW.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2...
One more link, basically laying out what I'm saying. Valve laying the groundwork for new platform. GABE is a long term thinker (so is Jen Hsun). Check out Frozenbyte's comments etc.
Linux up from 200 games just a few years ago and everyone thought it was stupid then (now top titles coming on it, witcher 3, wasteland2, AOW3 etc). Do the same thing on android for the most popular games from any other platform (console/pc etc) and you can have a very desirable box right? NV just needs to port every popular game they can as fast as they can while making sure to break even or so, then let the market take over making new IP on unreal4/unity5 etc that fully uses their hardware.
You don't seem to get the BIG picture. Think 5-10yrs out. Cuda might have seemed stupid in year ONE also. But 8yrs later they own 80% of the workstation market, are in 200+ major apps, taught in 500+ universities etc and has led to major profits for NV over that time (while AMD lost $7B in the last 15yrs, 6 of it in the last 12yrs). OpenCL is light-years behind.
One more point, ouya etc is MILES behind X1, which is 2x faster than xbox360/ps3 basically overall. The quality of games that will be made to FULLY take advantage of X1 and forward (14nm version coming in mere months for xmas stuff) will blow away old Xbox360/ps3 titles. Port like mad until everyone amps up some more and you are selling 1B+ units that are ALL far more powerful than xbox360/ps3. Think about the next gen using HBM for this Billion+ units. It's a 10-15yr plan to destroy WINTEL, not nonsense. The boxes you're talking about don't have much of a gaming experience which is why they're basically dead (ouya being sold off, can't survive).
prieye - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
Make your wall of text summary....As node shrink (<10nm + HBM), there isn't a needed for the Shield device or platform, as high-end x86 SoC no longer handicapped in power limitation. Think of PS5/XB-two can fixed in a tablet, mini-box or even smartphone. Why port when PC, Consoles, Android, Linux game and many can run native?Cuda was great as proprietary, but that was history. Today, I can't find a single Nvidia GPU in the world most popular company, APPLE. The last time I looked, the world greenest super computer, isn't have any of Nvida product in it. And, the world most powerful GPU in single/double precision isn't make by NV.
Speaking of history....here is some achievement regrading Tegra SoC.
...Tegra was entered smartphone market then called it quits after a few years
...Tegra made noise in WindowsRT then silently exited without explanation.
...Tegra + Icera combo promised to unseat Snapdragon then JHH shutted it down called it quits
...Tegra again made noise in Google Tango Project then called it quits
...Now again, Tegra is making noise with the Shield platform...You see the patterns here....will call it quits and let poor customers holding a bag.
Ranger101 - Tuesday, June 16, 2015 - link
Everything Nvidia does would make complete sense to those who are paid by them.jjj - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Not very sure your assumptions about this are correct.Nvidia is selling next to nothing in mobile and right now it seems that TX1 is too hot for even tabs. The TV box won't sell well at all and Nvidia seems to have given up on Android outside cars for at least the next few years.
Now if this is to port games for w/e they are using for GRID or for a Linux on ARM desktop OS ( guess that one could even be Android based), it would seem more likely.
ThortonBe - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
I would love for more games for Linux!Morawka - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
the tv box will sell well because it's the only set top box that can stream 4k. only netflix certified device.. only device with HDMI 2.0, only device with wide color gamut.and it's $200...
Murloc - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
you sjust listed 4 things people understand nothing about.A gaming device for the living room has success if 12 years old recognize the brand and want it.
This is a huge gamble by nvidia and I'm skeptical. But maybe they'll win, who knows.
chizow - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
No, people interested in 4K do understand and care about this, but it is admittedly a niche market.Morawka - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
you know, people like you have been saying "wont sell many shield devices" for the past 3 years, and calling it all a niche market,, but all i know is Nvidia keeps making them, and people are buying them.see it to believe it right? i guess all those amazon reviews and newegg reviews are free review units given away..
Morawka - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
apple better play nice and start using Nvidia GPU's in their products again... Everyone wants Nvidia Discrete gpu's in their iMac's, Mac Pro's and Retina Macbook Pro's, however apple likes their margins more than their customers wishes.if they return to nvidia gpu. OR AT THE VERY LEAST, offer Nvidia Build to order options, then more games will continue to get ported. I think Nvidia's purchase killed 2 birds with 1 stone.. Get more tech for porting games to android, whilst gaining leverage on apple.
Senti - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Apple love to lock you in but doesn't like at all to be locked itself. I think that's why they are trying to stay away from NV.id4andrei - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Correct. Apple wants to kill CUDA and nvidia does not want to support OpenCL as much as Apple would wish. Apple made OpenCL the center of OSX regarding professional workload so nvidia is out of the question.jwcalla - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
At this point Apple has completely checked out on Khronos standards.Yojimbo - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Apple wants to kill CUDA? What are you talking about? Apple has no power to do so, and why would they want to?Senti - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
He meant "KIll CUDA in their walled garden" and they have full power to do so.jwcalla - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
People who depend on CUDA applications will just go to a different platform. Most of these people are professionals who need to get work down and would have no problem dumping Apple for Windows or Linux workstations.Yojimbo - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
Did he mean that? Even if so, why would they want to? In order to kill CUDA in their walled garden they need to restrict their users' continuous access to NVIDIA GPUs. That seems to mean going long stretches of time without offering NVIDIA GPUs, which in turn seems like mostly choosing AMD over NVIDIA. So in order to avoid becoming tied to NVIDIA by their users' wishes, they end up becoming a bit tied to AMD instead, in opposition to some of their users' wishes. Not sure it is a great strategy. I think more likely, they don't care about compute very much at all in their walled garden. They like to make purchases in bulk and play suppliers against each other. They chose AMD this round because AMD offered them a better deal. Much like the console supply competition, AMD was willing to sell their chips for less than NVIDIA was.id4andrei - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
No, no and no. The biggest reason for the AMD choice was OpenCL performance. AMD has supported OpenCL from the start - it's not like they had any choice seeing nvidia started their own thing with CUDA. Apple made OpenCL the center of their compute efforts. nvidia's OpenCL support is crap compared to AMD. The macpro trashcan has great OpenCL performance in OpenCL optimized programs(like Apple's Final Cut), but with AMD cards. Nvidia is bullish about CUDA, their cards are literally designed around CUDA cores.The low price is an afterthought. Anyway, Apple made a major compromise putting a 3yr old GPU in the 15" MBP and asking 2500$ for it.
zepi - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
If Apple really cared they could just buy Nvidia.Senti - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
It makes no sense to buy NV. If Apple wanted to buy something AMD would by much better deal.kron123456789 - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Apple can buy Nvidia and AMD. And even Intel. But they won't.Morawka - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
they could but that doesn't necessarily mean the companies would be willing to be sold. Intel would never sell. They are a money printing machine.Nvidia,, maybe, but i doubt it.
zepi - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
What possible value could AMD give to Apple? Just inferior / equal technology that they already have full access to. I see zero benefit from buying AMD, since they couldn't use their CPU's anyway without big performance regression compared to current Intels (except maybe in mac mini).Nvidia on the other hand has arguably way better GPU-technology that would be much more suitable to Apple's computers than the chips that Apple currently buys from AMD.
Nvidia might even have some valuable GPU tech for the mobile, since newest Nvidia SOC seem to have competitive GPU parts compared to the PVR-tech Apple licenses at the moment. Afaik AMD has nothing worth noting for mobile.
Maxwell in Mac's would arguably be much better than what AMD to offer (better perf/w and Apple is perf/w limited in all of their HW designs).
I don't see Apple buying Nvidia, but I think that they at least would benefit from it. I don't see any benefit from buying AMD what so ever. Not that AMD would costs anything for them since AMD market cap is just few weeks worth of profits for Apple. Nvidia market cap is at least a bit over quarter's worth of profits.
Senti - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
No one makes investments such as buying other big company based on products today. For future AMD works on HSA alone looks to me more interesting than anything NV can offer.You don't buy other company to slap their piece in your system – it's all about tight integration of technologies. And it looks like no one wants to integrate NV tech but OpenPOWER foundation. Remember when NV announced that their "superior" Maxwell technology is available for licensing for mobile? Who went with them? No one.
Nagorak - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Nvidia has slightly better GPU tech. AMD cards are still quite competitive. And that's just at the moment. The advantage can easily turn around from one generation to the next (it has in the past).Morawka - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
maybe in GPU speed but not even close in perf per watt. and thats really what matters in 80% of today's compute market.chizow - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Apple couldn't just buy Nvidia, would be a massive poison pill that even their $700 market cap wouldn't be able to digest. Nvidia would end up way overvalued at like $50Bn or something if Apple tried a hostile takeover.And as we've seen, gross overvaluation can lead to eventual problems long-term (see AMD acq. of ATI).
Nagorak - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Why would they even want to buy Nvidia anyway? They can already buy their products. It doesn't make any real sense that Apple would even be interested in getting into the business of making graphics chips. They already arguably can make better mobile chips in house.I could actually see a purchase of AMD as being more likely, but even there there's no real point to it.
Morawka - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
very arguably.... they arent even close to X1 with ipad air 2.. and that gpu is not inhouse.. it's off the shelf.Yojimbo - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
A hostile takeover?WorldWithoutMadness - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
No, Apple wants the 'know how' to breathe the Metal stuffs into their ecosystem since all these crazy low level API pops out like flu. Nvidia can't give Apple that knowledge but AMD can.That's AMD bargains for the next several years and of course the large margin.
chizow - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
@Morawka. Agreed, its been a headache for our Mac users with all these driver branches due to the hardware change from Nvidia back to AMD, but its most likely costs and politics driving the decisions. Apple wants OpenCL to succeed and Nvidia is obviously pushing CUDA, so I imagine they will continue to be at odds.Yojimbo - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Apple has an interest in encouraging their users to use OpenCL rather than CUDA because it allows Apple more choice and better bargaining power. But they can do nothing to kill CUDA even if they wanted to. Choosing AMD now because CUDA is not an option for AMD GPUs is preemptively reducing their choice in order to prevent the loss of choice later. It may affect their decisions but it makes no sense for it to be an avoid NVIDIA at all costs policy.savagemike - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
The real loser if Nvidia is successful in building Android gaming will be Microsoft. There are already extremely few reasons why Android wouldn't work as a desktop OS.
kron123456789 - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Such as lack of proper mouse support.TheinsanegamerN - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
And lack of proper multitasking.savagemike - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
But we're already seeing that. First from third parites such as Samsung and now possibly system wide in "M". It will probably be tiling but I'm sure they could do stacking windows if they wanted. This is probably the largest step they need though.sonicmerlin - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
And lag.savagemike - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
It already has some mouse support. I'm not sure what is needed to make it 'proper' but I'm guessing it isn't beyond doing.hfm - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
No, just no. Apple is still the number one windows competitor in the desktop space, and even they are still so far behind. Especially for gamers.savagemike - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
I'm not talking about what is. I'm talking about what could be. And the gamers part was the predication of the suggestion.There are only the two big desktop graphics players and of the two Nvidia is arguably the stronger these days. So yes, Nvidia putting its shoulder into building up Android gaming should be a point of worry in Redmond.
Speedfriend - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
And Android's terrible problem with lagging, and instability.As much as we love to hate Windows, I hardly ever switch my work PC off, I virtually never have problem with apps crashing or memory issues. Now I wish I could say the same for my android and iOS devices. If Microsoft gets Windows 10 right, I will be going full windows
hfm - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Ahhhh.. Apple moving to an inferior in every way AMD GPU in the new MBP15 becomes even more clear...nunya112 - Saturday, June 13, 2015 - link
Oh my Gawd. SONY AND MICROSOFT> HEAR ME AND MOST OF US PC GAMERSwe already have a computer that is more than capable of playing your games. so it doesn't make sense for us to buy a PS4 or XB1 and why should we?
All you need to do is. sell the PS4 operating system install it as a dual boot option or emulate it in windows. Heck you could charge a Subscription fee. but you get the Operating System free to use and Xbox is DX 12. so that will run in windows easy. so I dont see the problem
CiccioB - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
I wonder, why nvidia does not invest in low level technology like a complete game engine to sell (or even give for free) to developers.Doing so allows them to give more bias to the strong points of their own architecture. Of course that will not be good for concurrents, though some extras could just be made optional to allow other architectures to work decently, but with almost 80% of the game market, nvidia can (and should) do that.
ET - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
Reading "NVIDIA acquires" always makes me cringe. "There goes another piece of tech to become completely closed and exclusive to NVIDIA hardware," I think.Still, in this case far as I know Transgaming wasn't really doing that much with this tech in recent years, so it's not like it will be a big loss. I can certainly see the benefits for both parties. I just hope than NVIDIA will use this tech to help Android games in general and not only Tegra devices.
Yojimbo - Sunday, June 14, 2015 - link
PhysX was always exclusive to PhysX hardware before NVIDIA bought it, was it not? 3dfx technology was exclusive to 3dfx. The Icera softmodem was sold to whomever wants to use it after NVIDIA bought it just like before, I think. You seem be giving a strange impression that you believe all other companies give all their stuff away as if they have some sort of altruistic and communal business spirit and NVIDIA is a big, bad, greedy wolf.NVIDIA has no interest in helping Android games unless they can make money by doing so, and neither does any other company. The market will dictate what strategy they choose to use. That's not to say that some companies might not make different decisions in a particular instance than another. But you can be almost certain that if AMD had 75% market share and a technological advantage they'd be doing what they could to profit from that advantage, and NVIDIA in turn would be forced to make their solutions more open so that enough people would pay attention to them.
ET - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
PhysX was exclusive to PhysX hardware, but that hardware could run alongside any card. If I could buy a cheap NVIDIA card and stick it in an AMD system to get PhsyX, that would be fine, but NVIDIA doesn't allow that. NVIDIA sticks to closed tech, and provides bad support for open one (like OpenCL). AMD contributes a lot more to open projects and standards.Similarly with Android, NVIDIA always had exclusives for its Tegra hardware. They don't compete on features or performance, they compete by throwing money at developers, for both PC and Android, to tie their games into the NVIDIA ecosystem.
And yes, that's business, but I can still root for companies I feel are less predatory. Just because something makes good business doesn't mean it's good for consumers.
(And for the record most of my PC's have NVIDIA hardware in them, as well as my Nexus 7 2012, which my kids now use.)
FlushedBubblyJock - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link
"There goes another piece of tech to become completely closed and exclusive to NVIDIA hardware," I think.And, you hate nvidia, you hate their hardware, you love amd, and amd would never, ever, ever, ever have any exclusive intellectual property. They swore they loved you, and you love them, and neither of you can do any wrong, and certainly not any wrong that evil nvidia has done a thousand times worse and a thousand times more often.
nvidia needs to be forcibly disbanded by the governments of world before they destroy all innovation and humanity itself.
I agree with you, transgender was a great totally open source company that anyone could download, then came the devil.
NvidiaWins - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
Good stuff~