Say you are at compusa. You are an average newbie computer user. You want to play some 3d game it doesnt really matter. You see a pretty box that has a voodoo4 (or even a 5 i guess this works too, just depends on how much money you have). See the vsa-100 doesnt support all those AGP features. That makes is very very compatible. I've seen people install voodoo3s on VIA mvp3s and alladin V boards without vgart drivers (newbies have no idea what a vgart driver is). Lots of cheapo computers have those. Anyways, you pop the thing in , and it works out of the box. Some friend of yours seems to be wanting a cheap card, and you tell them too. Yeah those "3dfx" cards. (great brand awareness, first off most people cant even say Nvidia, is it invidia, envidia, nevidia, people can say three-D-F-X its all marketing its beautiful actually). Plus Nvidia cards are spread under a bunch of brands. Say someone buys a creative labs card. No one is gonna buy say a Elsa at compusa. how many computer newbies do you know that even know what ELSA is. They only know 3 brands. 3dfx and creative labs and ATI for video cards, diamond is dead so that is moot. The voodoo4 costs only $150. So does that hercules geforce2mx. But then again, hercules has no marketing, and hell mr newbie cant say geforce either (geh-force?, Gee force? ghee force?). Nvidia really screwed up here. Should have just called it G-force. Their marketing is just moronic. If i were nvidia i'd change the companies name to something like PRO3d or something. Something any idiot can say right (riva was a stupid name, i had people calling it reeva instead of rai va).
Anyways the newbie gets his card working with relatively little trouble since newbie man doesnt need to play with AGP or vgarts or anything. It works with all his old glide games. this is an upgrade to an old computer most likely, since people who are usually buying stuff at compusa are upgrading old computers, so lots of old computers have old games and those old games are probably glide. Anyways, everything is working well, they think they got a good deal, they tell all their friends and BAM, 3dfx continues to take the top 5 spots in the top 10 retail video cards. The newbie knows nothing of FPS (hell personally i dont care as long as i get more than 50) and is happy. End of story. 3dfx wins because people are stupid,brand awareness is good, their cards are easy to install, compusa hates dealing with returns so why not sell the easy to install cards, and to top it off their cards are DECENT.
Anyways the newbie gets his card working with relatively little trouble since newbie man doesnt need to play with AGP or vgarts or anything. It works with all his old glide games. this is an upgrade to an old computer most likely, since people who are usually buying stuff at compusa are upgrading old computers, so lots of old computers have old games and those old games are probably glide. Anyways, everything is working well, they think they got a good deal, they tell all their friends and BAM, 3dfx continues to take the top 5 spots in the top 10 retail video cards. The newbie knows nothing of FPS (hell personally i dont care as long as i get more than 50) and is happy. End of story. 3dfx wins because people are stupid,brand awareness is good, their cards are easy to install, compusa hates dealing with returns so why not sell the easy to install cards, and to top it off their cards are DECENT.
