Don't be ignorant. Every chipset was potentially trouble with the Live. It was CREATIVE's drivers that caused problems by streaming null data across IDE 2 in order to keep it's PCI bus priority at the top.
Really, than why did other chipsets didn't have any problems? This is including SIS, Intel, and AMD motherboards that is not based on 686b chipsets and Nforce.
i think the difference between ati and creative is that ati has market power in the graphics industry, where as creative's market power is in audio. i don't think their market power is gonna help them a lick if they don't have something kick ass and drivers to drive it. sure creative has been in the graphics market for a while, but they've been paying other ppl for the technology.
But they do have power in the graphics industry. They have been a 3rd party chip seller for years until they stopped. Before Visiontek and Gainward, Creative sold more 3rd party chips than anybody else. They have brand recognition.
I'm not saying they'll come out and start competing with Nvidia and ATI off the bat but they will slowly but surely compete with these two in the near future. Look at Nvidia and the days of Riva128. They didn't do so good at first but they had money to compete with 3dfx and destroyed them at the end. If you have money and power you can get engineers to build you anything you want and write drivers for you too.
nVidia's dominance in the video market didn't help them at all in the chipset market.
Because they just started the chipset market. They are still relatively new when it comes to motherboards but they will do well if there motherboard prices isn't so high.
Microsoft is in the same boat when it comes to the console market but they have money and dominance in the computer industry so they will do well in the future.