Has AMD got 'œGAME!'? Or just a new sticker/badge?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 19 May 2008 14:55

Opinion and Analysis

Kevin Unangst, Microsoft’s senior global director of Games for Windows said that “AMD and Microsoft share the vision of delivering better gaming experiences on PCs running Microsoft Windows operating systems. Microsoft’s Games for Windows program and AMD are both working to expand gaming accessibility and ease of use to consumers. Games for Windows titles and Microsoft’s gaming hardware, along with the AMD GAME! initiative, are great examples of how we can bring more value to PC gamers across the industry.”

Well, that’s no big surprise – Microsoft still makes millions from PC gaming, and so is happy to promote PC gaming and sales of PC games, despite no doubt really wanting to maximise Xbox sales as much as possible. But given that AMD GAME! systems will be powered by Windows Vista, a sale of Microsoft software is still a sale, and Microsoft will take sales – and boosts to Vista’s sales figures, any way it can.

Intel’s response – if any – will be very interesting to watch. Intel already caters to hard core gamers with its Extreme series of Core 2 Quad processors, although AMD has certainly revved things up a notch with the launch of its “true quad core” Phenom processors – and its triple core processor.

AMD’s triple-core Phenom will deliver great performance on its own, but clock speed is still important, especially when most software still doesn’t fully take advantage of multi-core processing.

AMD are showing that they aren’t out of the fight, and are ready and able to challenge Intel for all they’re worth.

With big financial losses and job cuts, AMD has nothing to lose – and still has plenty of industry support. No-one wants to lose AMD – they help to keep Intel on their toes, and help to keep processor prices down for us all.

The next few months will see just how successful AMD’s GAME! initiative truly is, and whether it has made that much of a difference to console sales.

And it’s nice to see AMD leading with an initiative, instead of just reacting to something Intel as done, as it did with the AMD Live! campaign in competition to Intel’s ViiV project, with both programs having gone very quiet of late.

Watch out Intel – there’s still life in AMD yet, and they’re saying that it’s GAME! on!

You can see the AMD GAME! sticker/badges here.