3dfx's last day...

[Guru]

To our valued customers:

3dfx Interactive, Inc. is no longer providing support for any 3dfx products and drivers. Information about 3dfx is no longer available from the 3dfx.com website. Please be advised that on February 19, 2002, the 3dfx.com website will be shut down entirely. As a result, the following alternatives have been put in place:

3dfx.com

[KeiFront]

Still remember the voodoo I and II days.

[[GDI]Raptor]

I miss 3Dfx....
To bad, lets hope someone can make something to "quiet" nVidia with.... (Read: Pharelia)

[KeiFront]

20 feb site is still alive

[[GDI]Raptor]

Still alive today to......
Perhaps nVid forgot to close it down??

[borat]

why bother shuuting it down at all?it cant cost much.

[Jammrock]

A moment of silence for the fallen hero of the 3D world...


...


Jammrock

[rugger]

Jammrock, what for?

While I won't deny 3dfx didn't revolutionise the graphics industry, 3dfx fell on its own sword, and I will not mourn the falling of the pathetic company they became.

3dfx failed to do the following, which in the end caused the failure of their company:
1) Develop reasonable products that could be produced cheaply, yet compete with competitors products. The major problem they had was the VSA-1 chip used in the Voodoo 4 and 5. This chip has its roots back in the voodoo 1 chipset. They should have thrown that chipset away and used their experence to develop a MUCH better chipset. Who else here though the Voodoo-5 6000 was a stupid idea. (4 VSA-1 chips on a massive board with own power supply)
2) They failed to focus on their core business. Instead, they bought STB, and thought they could monopolise the supply of their own cards while all the time neglecting the future of the company. This is probably why 1 never occured.
3) They failed to develop full drivers for their cards. As matrox, ati and nvidia have found out, developing good, fully functional (opengl and directx) drivers is essesial in creating good, repeat business.
4) Because of 1 and 3, 3dfx failed to make inroads into the OEM business which fuels graphics buisnesses.

And on a more pratical note, why should I mourn 3dfx's death anyway? Its just a company, most of the employee's would have moved on to other jobs (including with nvidia), the managers probably made out like bandits in the sellout. Nobody was killed or seriously hurt.

The shareholders probably lost a bundle though