Why AMD is betting big on virtual reality
Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su was conducting a live interview with CNBC's "Squawk Alley" a few weeks ago when the questions turned to one of this year's most buzzed-about technologies: virtual reality.
"Virtual reality is one of those great applications that just changes the way you deal with immersive applications and devices - and it's not just gaming. It's really across a number of different segments," Su told the CBNC reporters. "We actually really believe that as we get the performance levels to the right place we can get the next 100 million VR users - and that's our goal."
AMD recently released its first VR-capable graphics cards, called Radeon RX 480, which are based on its new Polaris design
Price point is the important part: AMD will sell it for $199, making it at least $100 cheaper than its main competitor, Nvidia Corp.
AMD also wants to be the go-to chipmaker for VR developers. The company announced in March a special graphics process for VR developers called Radeon Pro Duo, which retails for $1,499. It is packaged with AMD's "LiquidVR" software.
The chipmaker hasn't reported an annual profit since 2011. In the last quarter it lost $109 million. Its sales declined nearly 28 percent in 2015 from the previous year.
Much of AMD's troubles are due to the sales slump in the PC market,..."AMD has to do 'Hail Mary' kind of activities because their back is against the wall," Kay said. "They need to take a fairly high risk and take big bets on things that might pay out because that's what will get them out of the hole."