Microsoft + Nvidia + AMD + Intel = Wow for gamers!

The PC Gaming Alliance is real. It was just announced at GDC, and comprises not only the rumoured Intel, Nvidia, AMD/ATi and Microsoft (along with Alienware, Dell, ACER and Gateway), but publishing giants Epic and Activision as well. Intel’s Randy Stude will be heading up the group, which rather than making things like official stickers, box labels and slogans will instead be working to provide the platform with a unified “voice”:

One of our main major objectives is to provide one voice on PC gaming market. There’s no one source that says ‘hey this is where the PC market is going’. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are always calling their market share - we’re going to call our market through this group.

Sounds like a truly-grass-roots move. And it’s got all the big hardware names, and two of the biggest software names (remember, Acti includes Blizzard now), onboard. Seems reports of the death of PC gaming have been greatly exaggerated!

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NVIDIA to acquire AGEIA Technologies! Great for gamers!?

“PhysX on GeForce Will Bring Amazing Physics Dynamics to Millions of Gamers” reads the top of the Press Release on the NVIDIA site! Really? Well, yeah, kinda, In the long run. NVIDIA needs no introduction, they are a super heavy weight of the Graphics Processor Unit industry and have a huge share of the gamer market. NVIDIA’s unvieled it’s intentions to acquire a not-so-flourishing AGEIA Technologies who have had little but some success with their brand name PhysX Processing Unit. PPU was a hit with Sony and they incorporated it in PlayStation 3. Unreal Tournament 3 also incorporated the use of AGEIA’s PPU, but the dismal sales for the title meant little improvement in the user-base number.

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