ATI acquires Bitboys

[kemosabe]

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/060502/0126410.html

Now there's one I wasn't expecting. Sounds like the back door into Nokia 3D handsets.

 

[finsider]

Said so!

This was cooking. Nvidia took Hybrid, ATI follows with Bitboys.

What I enjoy most, is that the efforts of the people in these two small companies who have also cooperated through the hard times to survive, have in such a great way been recognized by the two greates graphics players. This finally puts an end to all of the nonsense that has been posted even on this site. Congratulations guys! Well deserved! Looking forward to the mobile graphics future.

 

[epicstruggle]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30345

 

[Geo]

Glaze3D R700. ZOMG.



I don't know whether to applaud or feel a little sad at the continuing consolidation.

Well, congrats to the 'boys anyway, as this is one more . . .err. . .bit. . .of validation of them as graphics professionals and not just wild-eyed dreamers.

 

[chavvdarrr]

well, it's sad IMHO

It seems that 2 big "sharks" don't want competition...
XGI - bought
ULi - bought
Bitboys - bought

What's left? Via-S3 and PowerVR ? No hope for new "hungry" competitor... Stages set for long "Intel vs AMD" saga ...

 

[Sxotty]

Be honest we were already in that saga...

 

[FrameBuffer]

sorry but you're a 1 month and 1 day too late.. better luck next year.


EIDT: Holy carp,.. you weren't kidding.. damn it I was sure it was a late April fools joke or something.. I guess now we might actually SEE a real product by Bitboys,. only one other name brings up the name Vaporware of a higher magnitude ..DNF

 

[INKster]

sorry but you're a 1 month and 1 day too late.. better luck next year.


EIDT: Holy carp,.. you weren't kidding.. damn it I was sure it was a late April fools joke or something.. I guess now we might actually SEE a real product by Bitboys,. only one other name brings up the name Vaporware of a higher magnitude ..DNF

Don't forget Infinium Labs "Phantom" console

 

[Tim Murray]

ATI's one great victory was based on ArtX development. Maybe they can't do anything in-house well, so they have to get somebody else to do the majority of the work and THEN buy them. (It's a joke. Get over it.)

Seriously, though, can we all (excluding nappe1) agree that the ramifications on the PC business will be somewhere around "not at all?"

 

[eSa]

No...

sorry but you're a 1 month and 1 day too late.. better luck next year.


EIDT: Holy carp,.. you weren't kidding.. damn it I was sure it was a late April fools joke or something.. I guess now we might actually SEE a real product by Bitboys,. only one other name brings up the name Vaporware of a higher magnitude ..DNF

You are wrong. Bitboys had a real product years ago. It was a embedded processor made for NEC and it made them real money. Besides, they have had several real, full mobile GPU designs for some time now.

 

[Sobek]

Just waiting for AMD to buy Intel, burn it's offices and fabs....

Then the cycle shall be complete. Ahh

 

[Maintank]

Hey is ATI looking for a new arch?

I hope they didnt really believe Bitboys website about their hyper threaded ultra coded parallel memory configuration that will beat the current crop of video cards by at least 300% and should be out soon, or until Bitboys decides the competition is too close and revamps their core with all new industry certified buzzwords.

 

[Tahir2]

Seriously, though, can we all (excluding nappe1) agree that the ramifications on the PC business will be somewhere around "not at all?"

Somewhere slightly north of "not at all" is close but then that is because the Bitboys concentrated on their mobile technologies and abandoned the idea of a desktop GPU.

 

[NocturnDragon]

I've found a couple of patents by bitboys, Still I haven't read them.
Graphics engine, and display driver IC
3-D rendering engine with embedded memory
Controller/driver for driving display panel

and then some european patents.

 

[Nappe1]

You are wrong. Bitboys had a real product years ago. It was a embedded processor made for NEC and it made them real money. Besides, they have had several real, full mobile GPU designs for some time now.

eSa, pistä mailia lasse.karkkainen@kymp.net niin saadaan sun Kirveesi vihdoin perille. (se on kohta kaksi vuotta odottanut että otat vaan yhteyttä.)

english translation: I have requested 2 week ban from this forum, so that I don't go flaming mode on every second post I read... I'll hope that Dave Baumann approves this.

 

[Dwarden]

good news for ATI&BB shareholders

i hope ATI now aims for buy out of Imagination Technologies http://www.imgtec.com/

and circle is complete

 

[Nappe1]

ATI's one great victory was based on ArtX development. Maybe they can't do anything in-house well, so they have to get somebody else to do the majority of the work and THEN buy them. (It's a joke. Get over it.)

Seriously, though, can we all (excluding nappe1) agree that the ramifications on the PC business will be somewhere around "not at all?"

umm... I am not exactly sure if I got what you ment, but if that was supposed to mean that I have been waiting Bitboys desktop card or any other rebellion card to strike from the shadows, I would recomend to search my posts during last few years. (*I was about explode here, but just a once more pushed my guts down throat.* Just use the search, please.) After 2002 / 2003 it has been quite obious that ATI and nVidia are and will be the only players in desktop (gaming) market until it's last breath. Even both major players have started to thinking how to survive when consumers wake up to notice that there's pretty much no sense putting 1000 Euros per year to graphics hardware, while you have 1 or 2 games that can use all of it's power.

(the last breath of PC gaming IMHO ain't that far away anymore. PC gaming is shrinking towards freak genres, which means less total sells, which again takes us towards less orders from retailers, which again means less enthuastic attitude from publishers. But this is completely different story)

 

[DudeMiester]

If PC gaming dies, it'll just come back again with added vitality. That's what happened the last time the gaming market crashed. Likewise, if ATI or Nvidia go, there will be another to fill their place. Scientists still need GPUs, and so will Vista. I wouldn't worry too much. I mean, if the market got really retarded price-wise, I imagine AMD or Intel could make a good yet cheap GPU, and I think that would be worth being excited about!

 

[Geo]

Where do you suppose console gpus are going to come from --and how good they'll be-- if PC gaming dies?

The fans of neither side likes the symbiosis, it seems --but get over it.

 

[Farid]

Will Nappe reply to this obvious troll of mine? Stay tuned to the next episode!

So, Ati bought the Benny Hill of the 3D industry?
Great... If they were looking for big claims and no results or if they needed some smoke and mirrors.

Seriously, why did they even bother? I know that I said that same thing about XGi, but compared to BitBoys, XGi is like the Silicon Graphics of old... Maybe as some said, Ati just wanted to take out, early, one of the "potential future" competitor on the handheld market.

Now, as already said, a good acquisition, for Ati or Nvidia, would be ImgTec, since there are a real contender on the handheld market.
The price shouldn't be the same as the BB's one, though.