One of the reasons the Xbox 360 was rushed to market a little too quickly was because Nvidia stopped making the GPU on the OG Xbox.
Microsoft didn't have a choice, they couldn't keep making the Xbox.
You don't want to be locked in by a 3rd party like that.
Surely a company like Microsoft or Sega has enough weight to throw around to get a contract obligating the GPU provider to continue providing GPUs for X amount of years after the console’s launch, right? Maybe that was an oversight on the original Xbox, but I don’t see why they couldn’t do that now.
You would think, right? Apparently not...
Thats how you get elevated government contract prices, to compensate for ensuring these factories keep making a product longer than its natural shelf life. And also the risk of being stuck with an obsolete technology.
One of the reasons the Xbox 360 was rushed to market a little too quickly was because Nvidia stopped making the GPU on the OG Xbox.
Microsoft didn't have a choice, they couldn't keep making the Xbox.
You don't want to be locked in by a 3rd party like that.
Surely a company like Microsoft or Sega has enough weight to throw around to get a contract obligating the GPU provider to continue providing GPUs for X amount of years after the console’s launch, right? Maybe that was an oversight on the original Xbox, but I don’t see why they couldn’t do that now.
You would think, right? Apparently not...
Thats how you get elevated government contract prices, to compensate for ensuring these factories keep making a product longer than its natural shelf life. And also the risk of being stuck with an obsolete technology.