Conference 7.286::digital

    
    
    	Notes police! This conference is NOT a bulletin board!
    
    	Seriously, I don't know about Digital-Commodore, but Darius
    	Technology is building an Alpha clone using the EV-4 chip.
    	They chose EV4 after they got burned when Intel stopped plans
    	for a 64-bit i860; now they (Darius) are supposedly being
    	hampered by a shortage of EV4 chips from Digital.
    
    	Kinda nice, though, that somebody is building an 'Alpha clone'.
    
    	John
    

    
    re -1
    
    >now they (Darius) are supposedly being hampered by a shortage 
     of EV4 chips from Digital.
    
    Here at SQF we have cut back on production of DC290(EV-4) because
    we have built up a considerable die bank(rumor has it 20 weeks),
    so I don`t see how this company can be having problems getting
    Alpha.Then again maybe we are not look at the "big picture".

    
    
    	re -1
    
    	My source is the Sept. 13 issue of Digital news and Review, article
    	on page 23 titled "Dearth of chips stalls Darius Alpha PC". First
    	sentence starts out  "Hamstrung in part by a shortage of Digital's
    	Alpha AXP chips,..."
    
    	Grab a copy and check it out..you folks are in more of a position
    	to know how much credence this article has than I am.
    
    	John

    re .2
    >cut back on production of EV4... rumor of 20 week supply
    
    Maybe we can help Intel build Pentiums...?  ;-)

    
    Maybe we will build 486 chip for our own pc`s !

    
    While we are on the subject of Commodore, why not Sega too?
    Sega is Nintendo's biggest competitor and need a 64-bit chip
    to cunter Nintendo-MIPS alliance.
    

    Re .6 Right now Alpha chips are selling for right around $1,000 each in
    quantity. Add the cost of the other circuitry involved in a video game,
    marketing, and some profit for Sega..... I don't think that the mass
    market is ready to make the jump from $99 Nintendo sets to $1,500 ones,
    no matter how many bits it has. :-(
    
    Harry
    

>    Re .6 Right now Alpha chips are selling for right around $1,000 each in
>    quantity.

Livewire would seem to disagree with you.  It lists a 21064 @ 150 MHZ as
selling for $455 in quantities of 5,000.

--Scott

    re: Game machine prices
    
    Recent articles showing the Atari 64 bit game system (RISC based)
    indicate that it will sell for about $200 per system. To be introduced
    in the U.S. market early 1994. Good example of a real commodity market.
    
    John B.

From what i've seen of the home market, $200 seems to be the limit that most
people are willing to pay.  The SEGA Genesis started out at just under $200.
You can get some high end machines, such as the Neo-Geo for around $1000, but
they never really proved to be high volume (at least from what I've read).

But, there's also the lucrative arcade market, which doesn't have the same
cost limits as a home unit.  Arcades are where we're already seeing the
first gaming use of VR.  I can see a lot of advantage to getting a foot in
the door in the arcade market, and then as Alpha prices come down, migrating
into other markets.

--Scott

  ....It was rumored (paranoia or real, I am not sure) that Nintendo was really
   intending to penetrate the home market with their games first. All these
   machines having a fully functioning CPU inside them makes it possible
   to sell the installed base additional equipment and software at a later
   date to help people start using them as computers.

  If this is true and truly possible, it might make sense for a chip-maker
  to cut costs of the chip drastically, just to capture market share.

  Nari

    
    re .12 etc
    
    While $200 may be limit for majority of game market, there is a 
    significant sized market for $500 level game machines with
    sophisticated VR/animation. An example is the new 3DO machine
    priced at 500-800 range due to hit the market this Cristmas.
    
    RV

    
    
    Well, some other semiconductor company thought it worthwhile to
    talk to Sega and make a deal while we were as usual debating the
    issue.
    
    
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9/22/93

              
TECHNOLOGY BRIEF -- HITACHI LTD.: PACT WITH SEGA ENTERPRISES TO MAKE HOME
VIDEO GAME

             Semiconductor giant Hitachi Ltd. of Tokyo and video-game maker
          Sega Enterprises Ltd. said they will cooperate in developing Sega's
          next-generation home video game.
             Specifically, Hitachi intends to supply Sega with a new
          microprocessor that uses reduced instruction set computing, or RISC,
          technology. Sega will use that chip, called the "SH," as the "brain"
          for a video-game machine now under development. Sega said it could
          market that machine as early as next fall.

    >    Well, some other semiconductor company thought it worthwhile to
        talk to Sega and make a deal while we were as usual debating the
        issue.
    
    I seriously doubt that a business relationship such as this alone would
    keep either you or I gainfully employed. Incrementally, it's ok but I'd
    sell my stock if I thought the corporation ever considered this kind of
    thing as a bet your business venture.

    
    re .15
    
    I am not advocating Sega etal as bet the business strategy!
    
    However, given the need to sell 3-4 MILLION(!) Alpha chips per
    year to keep the investment stream (ala Palmer), one would expect
    our Semiconductor group to look into non-traditional areas such as
    Home entertainment to add volume. The traditional system market
    certainly cannot absorb more than 500K chips per year.
    
    RV

economies of scale.  Whether your product is a commodity or not.  
The greater amount you sell to Sega, the lower the overall cost of the 
product.  

In essence, you will have either a greater profit margin (price held constant)
or a more competitively priced product.

But I guess Hitachi already knows that ....

A friend of mine is a designer at Commodore, and they were very interested in
the Alpha chip when I spoke to him about a year ago.  I haven't been able to
check with him if anything happened.

    From the mags/notes I've seen there are two things going on.
    1. Digital and Commodore might have been working to get digital to use the
       now obsolete CDTV for interactive teaching.
    2. Commodore's new "knock yer eyeballs out" 'Triple-A' 24-bit graphic
       amigas (due out mid next year) will be at least as fast as a Pentium
       and will probably use the PowerPC chip (which, according to IBM, has
       better price/performance than Alpha AXP)

    -Paul.