E3 2015: Why AMD And NVIDIA Are Worth Watching

NVIDIA Corporation NVDA and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD are not typically thought of as E3 showstoppers, but they might be worth watching in 2015. "Watch for the hardware, the PC gaming graphics war between NVIDIA and AMD," Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Benzinga. "AMD has been very forthright, saying, 'There's something new that's coming.' I think watching how NVIDIA and AMD fight each other is gonna be a really interesting one for me at this show, how they position against each other." Virtual reality could be a key part of each firm's strategy. "I would definitely think you're going to be seeing these companies positioning it against each other," Moorhead added. "Like, 'My PC is better optimized for Oculus than the other guys.' I would expect to see those types of things." Streaming game services may also play a role. "NVIDIA and AMD have invested in tech that has made it possible to improve and reduce latency significantly," said Moorhead. "Because if you don't reduce the latency, you're not going to have a good experience. The other thing that has happened is [that] the average household bandwidth over the last five years has gone up considerably."

Related Link: E3 2015: How Sony Could Lose Its Leverage To Microsoft

A Shift In Support?

Looking ahead to the next generation, Asif Khan, CFO of Virtue LLC and CEO of Shacknews.com, thinks Nintendo Co., Ltd (ADR) NTDOY should use NVIDIA chips in its next console. "Why not ally with NVIDIA when everyone is still doing AMD chips?" Khan told Benzinga. "And then you get companies like Valve looking at you." NVIDIA has always been a significant manufacturer in the PC space, but it was once an important supplier for consoles as well. The company's graphics chips could be found within the original Xbox as well as PlayStation 3. Sony Corp (ADR) SNE gave NVIDIA the chance to supply chips for PlayStation 4, but the chipmaker turned down the offer. NVIDIA reportedly thought the costs were too high. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.