NVidia has reported at some point that its consumer GPU BU was operating at a slight loss, but that doesn't mean it'd be more profitable to leave that market. The professional business uses that roughly the same silicon and since silicon developments accounts for the vast majority of NRE, the positive gross margins of the consumer silicon fuels development of the professional business.
This has been discussed before: there are various ways in accounting to allocate R&D to BUs. If all silicon development costs were put on the account of the professional BU, the consumer BU would suddenly be crazy profitable at the expense of professional. The bottom line wouldn't change: at decently profitable company with great synergy between 2 product lines.
One of ATI/AMD's major failures is that they have never been able to achieve this, relying only on consumer GPUs. And since high-NRE technology is ultimately a winner-take-all industry, it's really just a matter of time.
This has been discussed before: there are various ways in accounting to allocate R&D to BUs. If all silicon development costs were put on the account of the professional BU, the consumer BU would suddenly be crazy profitable at the expense of professional. The bottom line wouldn't change: at decently profitable company with great synergy between 2 product lines.
One of ATI/AMD's major failures is that they have never been able to achieve this, relying only on consumer GPUs. And since high-NRE technology is ultimately a winner-take-all industry, it's really just a matter of time.