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The Future of Creative and the Sound Card Market
Hanners writes "Elite Bastards investigates the future of Creative Labs, and in particular their PC sound card business, which is facing a number of big challenges during 2007. Windows Vista has seen some large changes to the driver model required by audio devices, the abilities of on-board solutions have improved somewhat, and the amount of competition in the market place has ballooned. So what does all of this mean for the traditional leader of this market? As well as outlining all of these issues, they speculate as to what measures Creative may need to take to thrive once more in this changing market."
I'd still be their customer if the SB Audigy 2 I purchased didn't pop and click all the time. Apparently it's some kind of issue with nforce chipsets, but nobody can figure out exactly what, and the most common fix is to move it to a different slot. I ended up taking it out and using the on-board sound and it's just as good. It sits on top of my PC as a reminder that more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
2 words that SHOULD make you go out and pick up a Creative card...
Stable Drivers
Creative drivers have a tendency to, um...putting it nicely, SUCK horribly.
With the move by many motherboard makers to integrate EVERYTHING, I am surprised that Creative has last this long producing stand-alone cards. There will always be a need for high-end audio, though, so if Creative loses the low-end, they could continue to produce high-quality audio cards for the discerning gamer and audiophile.
As for Vista, maybe it is just me and lack of desire to ever want to touch it, but I don't see it as a deciding factor. At no point has a new M$ release 100% replaced the previous version. There are still DOS, Win3.1/95/98/ME/NT and 2K systems out in great numbers. Many of the newer integrated chipsets do not have drivers for the older OSes. BUT, thanks to the ubiquity of the SoundBlaster card, those older OSes can still have audio. I don't see this as a huge and growing market. No, it is a dying market, but the need still exists.
Live on, Creative!
Bearded Dragon
Creative would have to be one of, if not the most evil of PC hardware manufacturers.
They are driven purely by their marketing Joes, and not by customer demands, or innovative tech.
You only need to read up on the happenings with Aureal to see the lengths they will go to.
Even after Creative bought out Aureal, none of Aureal's the superior tech made it into Creative products.
The day Creative looses thier hold over the soundcard market, is the day real 3D soundcard innovation will start.
Two words that make me not ever want to buy another Creative product....
Windows Drivers
Not sure why you would want to subject Linux to those resource hungry, crash causing, never working drivers. But what ever helps you make it through the day I guess.
Use to be that a Sound Blaster was a simple audio card that just worked. Then they started adding firewire and other crap that I dont need to it and the resources just started going away. If I need MIDI or digital audio I'll buy a pro level card. I just want to play the frikin game.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Drivers that worked would be nice. Hardware that didn't freeze would help. Finally, sound cards should be heard and not seen: They should ditch all the extra garbage they install. Look, I bought a stupid little sound card, it's not like that bit of phenolic and silicon is the centerpiece, the very *core* of my PC experience. Yet the bloatware certainly thinks it should be and insists on putting startup junk in my face, installing processes that God only knows what they do, and (I have vague memories of:) calling home to Mom to update itself.
I stopped buying Creative once it was clear they weren't going to support SMP systems anytime soon (heh, hyperthreading *forced* them to, finally), and that any improvements in their stuff was just going to involve shovelware on top of a bunch of creaky drivers that they were never going to fix any bugs in. Meh.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
No, it's Creative's problem.
..... if you only knew which bit in which byte).
If they feel that they have to disguise the source code of the drivers, that invariably means their product is crap. More specifically, it means their marketing is mendacious and if anyone could see the source code to the drivers they'd know at once (cf. those digital cameras with the proprietary, secret RAW formats; the RAW format necessarily exposes the actual number of pixels in the sensor, not the up-interpolated resolution of the JPEG encoder. Or nVidia's graphics cards, where you could make a £30 one do the job of a £300 one by changing one bit in one byte
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
>>> Do you really think anyone still running DOS/Win3.1/95/98/ME/NT is the type of user that buys aftermarket add-on cards to install in their computer? Ever felt the urge to get some classic gaming on a old physical system? Say hello to the SB16, SB AWE32, WaveBlaster I/II, etc. ;)