The next-gen Game Boy: Isn't it of strategic importance to ATI?

nelg said:
Would it be too much to infer that since Xenos is the MS name for the C1 that perhaps there is more to read into that comment from Richard?
Xenos is Ati's name. No one at Ati calls it C1.
 
ATI's already significant presence in 3D-capable cellphones will only be getting larger as Qualcomm's MSM 7xxx series chipsets will soon integrate Imageon technology into highend handhelds from many suppliers. And those profit margins are currently the company's highest after DTV (~40%). Qualcomm deal will be royalties like Xenos.

Considering the cozy relationship with both Nintendo and MSFT, Orton would be nuts not to go after both upcoming handheld console platforms. Anyone know when MSFT will announce theirs, by the way? :p

P.S. If ARM collects only 8 cents per CPU sold, then that must be on a royalty basis (100% profit margin) and doesn't reflect the actual cost of the CPU, so it can't be compared to ATI's current business model for supplying Imageon chipsets.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dave Baumann said:
C1 is the development name, "Xenos" is the name tacked on at the end.
No. C1 was the code name before there was a contract. Xenos is the development name.
 
Orton just spoke about embedded memory specifically when addressing the next generation Imageon, so it looks like a built in Framebuffer may be on the cards.
 
Applying tiling and a unified shading model to a portable processor would be a carryover of concept and learned lessons from a settop part more than any copying of specific design.
 
blakjedi said:
I thought xenos' design was wholly owned by MS....
Nope. No company in their right mind would give away a design like that and not still be able to use it themselves.
 
blakjedi said:
I thought xenos' design was wholly owned by MS....

I think they just own the rights to that implementation of it (so they can take the fabbing wherever they please). I think ATI probably still holds the patents/rights to many of the ideas in it (as I imagine there will be gpus in the future very similar to Xenos).

Maybe not though... who knows?
 
Megadrive1988 said:
Assuming Nintendo will give the 3D chip contract for the next-generation Game Boy to ATI, would you not imagine that it is of great strategic importance to ATI given the likely volume of units involved ? with the potental to sell tens of millions of new Game Boys from launch date through the end of the decade -- and probably sell more than both Xbox360 and Revolution put together, one would think this is a priority for Orton and his company. I was somewhat surprised that DS did not have an ATI chip in it, but I almost cannot imagine the next Game Boy without one.

What company provided the DS's graphics? Nintendo went without ATI previously, there's no reason they couldn't look elseware again. (a gamecube based portable in 2007/2008 wouldn't be bad though and would seem like a missed opportunity for easy ports if nintendo doesn't do it)
 
SiBoy said:
Graphics in the current generation has been a non-event, with many companies taking out token licenses of whatever happens to be available (many of which will never be enabled). Once graphics in mobiles is taken more seriously, the choice of which vendor's graphics to use will be taken more seriously.

While I don't disagree, it does also count who gets there first with working prototypes.
 
Dave Baumann said:
Some time ago AJ from Futuremark joined ATI, his job is to evangelise to handheld developers the use of shaders - this it kind of an odd job at the moment seeing as ATI have no shader enabled handheld parts yet.

We've been busy in a good kind of way. 8) Pretty confident about the future too.

BTW: If you listened throught the last conf call one interesting piece of information about handheld is that during this year ATI has shipped more than 80 million media processors for mobile phones. This is pretty impressive IMHO. Company also expects to ship more than 80 million media processors for mobile phones during 1H 2006, which is even more impressive. You can check out which phones ATI has done from here:
http://www.ati.com/products/handheld/onboard.html

Cheers,

AJ
 
Hey AJ, Happy Christmas.

I did listen to the CC, but we're not interested in what has happened, such as how many you've sold, but more interested in whats coming up! I note from the CC the next part would appear to have embedded RAM and DVB-H capabilities - given the comments from Richard this appears to sound more like a mini Xenos on the 3D side. Any other details you can fill us in on? ;)
 
Dave Baumann said:
Hey AJ, Happy Christmas.

I did listen to the CC, but we're not interested in what has happened, such as how many you've sold, but more interested in whats coming up! I note from the CC the next part would appear to have embedded RAM and DVB-H capabilities - given the comments from Richard this appears to sound more like a mini Xenos on the 3D side. Any other details you can fill us in on? ;)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to UK too,

Yeah, I know that the past is only so exiting. :) I just thought the 80 million figure was a good one to point out because it indicates that ATI is gaining rather positive momentum in this space. It also indicates that there's a serious market for multimedia processors in handheld environements.

Looking forward it's still a tad early to spill the beans. But we've been busy so keep watching this space...
 
linthat22 said:
Couldn't Nintendo go with Bitboys?
I would prefer PowerVR...

Going with ATI would be easy, but having only one partner would also be a problem (might want too much of the cake), so having another one on the handheld market might be a good idea.
 
LOL! I just found out last night that Bob Felstien, formerly the VP of Engineering heading up the Xbox project is now the head of engineering for handheld devices...
 
Dave Baumann said:
LOL! I just found out last night that Bob Felstien, formerly the VP of Engineering heading up the Xbox project is now the head of engineering for handheld devices...

in MS itself?
 
Dave Baumann said:
LOL! I just found out last night that Bob Felstien, formerly the VP of Engineering heading up the Xbox project is now the head of engineering for handheld devices...


Let me guess, a velcro wrist strap for the Virtual Boy relaunch?
 
Back
Top