Interview With Dave Orton - ATI

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Within3D conducted an interview with ATI's President and Chief Operating Officer David E. Orton on CeBIT 2003. The short interlude covers R&D effectiveness/costs as well as confronting Mr. Orton with the latest rumours on ATI's involvement in Xbox 2 and GameCube 2. Here is a little excerpt: w3d: A few weeks ago you openly expressed interest in developing not one yet two VPUs for next-generation consoles, namely the GameCube- and the Xbox-successors. There were some rumours that the work on the Xbox-chipsets was one reason for the delays that plagued Nvidia during the last months. Do you think ATI is up to the challenge of delivering not one but even two console-chipsets without compromising its PC-roadmap?

Orton: I would first say that we will not compromise our PC-roadmap. That?s fundamental, because it?s a core of our business. Last week we announced the relationship with Nintendo for development of new technology for Nintendo to be used in future devices. It would be a phenomenal goal, a phenomenal opportunity to be a provider of technology to two platforms but I think it?s really going to be up to Microsoft to decide which direction they want to go, so I wouldn?t want to speak for that. In terms of if we had to develop two (console chipsets): We?d be up to that. I think we could, I think we got a world class development team. The key would be leveraging from the cores that we have: The R300 and the R400 that is in development. It would be a challenge but it would also be an opportunity for a company like ATI. Within3D Interview