There's no way Creative will be subjected to monopoly sanctions because so much of the audio market is based on integrated AC 97 solutions.

Even if Creative had 99.9999% of the AIB market that would probably only mean <40% of the total "computer audio market".

Needless to say, Craeative can suck it as far as I'm concerned.
They killed Aureal and now they've bought out Sensaura.

I'll be going for ICEnsemble/VIA cards from now on.

Hmm this is going in the freaking insane category. Creative now has all the PC audio people by the balls, can we say monopoly?

I really wouldn’t mind too much other than the fact there wont be as much innovation, oh silly me I almost forgot about the black eye creative gave me with their POS drivers and the paper weight known as the audigy 2 platinum, 160$ well wasted.

I hate you creative.

I heard that Scipher were desperate NOT to sell to NVIDIA (in particular) as NVIDIA have screwed them down so much on licensing pricing that they (scipher) hate them (nvidia) with a passion. I expect they offered the business to Creative on a first refusal basis. NVIDIA are considered to be a bunch of arrogant tw@ts.

Who knows what's going to happen with Sensaura now. I have a love / hate relationship with my Audigy Platinum. It does make some games sound great but the bloatware I had to get rid of got on my tits big style. That friggin EAX AVI on startup takes the biscuit, what a load of cr@p. Its funny that Creative are being labelled as a vicious 'corporation'. Yes they're global but they only turned over $800m last year which makes them a minnow in the overall tech industry. I'm willing to give them a chance for now, they need to take it or their audio business will continue its slow death..

But what innovation do we have left in this field?

Do i need to remember you that ICEnsemble/VIA solutions like ENVY24 uses Sensaura 3DPA engine? ....the monopoly os not about sound cards itself, it s about 3DSound hardware based solution (thought Sensaura is mostly software...but it's sold as a licence with hardware solutions such as Cirrus Logic chips and others).

Not many sound card companies really used Sensaura audio. I mean I've had a Hercules Fortissimo 3 and now I have Nforce 2 Sound Storm and they only support Sensaura 4 channel audio. No Sensaura 5.1 support was ever released in drivers.

I've heard of a number of other audio standards out there but I can't remember their names.

I wish Nvidia would release a stand alone sound card based on their Nforce2 audio controller. I love this thing so much better than my bloated POS audigy!

what happened to the Anti-trust act???? this is one of those man.

You may not have noticed, but the Bush administration sucks when it comes to applying anti-trust law. And they are "correct", after all, who pays his re-election costs? Who determiines who wins elections? Companies, not me.

Creative are just taking advantage of a situation which the US voter has allowed to happen through apathy. How many of you will vote next year for a candidate who would do something about this kind of crap (if one even dared run)?

Can you say, MONOPOLY. What a clever way to quell your competition, buy up the rest of the market. I'm suprised Mr. gates amd his M$ money haven't tried the same yet, antitrust lawsuit comes to mind though....... :(

Creative now has complete control of the market....but you have to ask yourself, why did sensaura sell out so cheaply?

I'm still using a Vortex2 card. Looks like I'll be using it for another 5 years.

If we only had A3D 3.0 avalible and not trapped by Creative.

CL is definitely getting to be a monopoly like Intel and MS, but it boggles my mind how did they did it. Their audio products are substandard compared to Turtle Beach and others, and yet virtually every OEM ships Creative Crap (tm) with their systems, many exclusively. Just last night I noticed that Dell no longer offers TB sound cards with their systems, obvious evidence of some kind monopolistic strong-arm pressure or predatory pricing. Sad.

Creative is one smart company. You buy your competition and then charge an arm and leg for high quality audio. Creative has been the standard for awhile since the DOS days. I guess the Nforce 2 audio might have done some damage.

Yeah, this might elicit an anti-trust suit from Janet Reno, but Ashcroft doesn't waste the state's valuable time chasing down monopolists. Reno spent years on that and scarcely arrested any real criminals, and M$ is still in more or less the same position it was in before the lawsuit.

Is this purchase good for consumers? Of course not. But presently there are more urgent duties for the attorney general's office.

*sigh*

All the other companies can still make cards, if they disable/obfuscate/remove any Sensaura tech. It's not the end of the world.

Makes the Envy24HT much more competitive. Now everybody will have to play on the pure software audio playground (Well, Creative can still market their automated reverb knob called EAX). Besides, I'm starting to think Via/Carmack are right when they say that intelligent DSPs and mostly software audio engines are the future.

Creative doesn't own SRS Labs yet do thay? So not a monopoly. Yet. SRS is more geared towards CE and not computers, I suppose.. didn't stop them from buying Cambridge Soundworks, though.

Creative is based out of Singapore. Sensura is listed in the UK. This makes it a little harder for the DOJ or FTC to get involved (they still can, since they do business in the US, but it's more difficult).

There are alternatives. Integrated audio is available from several sources.

Audio isn't even requried to use a PC.

If Creative does run prices way up, other companies will be lured into the market.

From reading some of these comments you'd think the sky was falling....

Needless to say, this is NOT good news for consumers.

Well, there goes good audio.

Gee I don't know why the term MONOPOLY comes to mind. WTF?!?! Theres no way this deal can stick I mean really it's a straight up monopoly. Someone better stick them in the a@@ on this one.

Great, Creative is in a postion to throughly rape the whole market with ridiciously licenceing fees. :evil: Creative will destroy innovation in the PC audio market just like what they did to Aureal.

<grumpy>
#$TSDFG#@#$^@$#@$#! Creative, much like Microsoft, innovates like a sloth unless competition puts a hot poker in their butt. You can now consider the innovations in audio technology to be glacial and the prices to be borderline unreasonable.

We might as well reserve a little socket on every motherboard for a Creative SPU (sound processing unit).

</gumpy>

Dammit not another monopoly. Now lets see if they can fix that VIA chipset Creative sound card issue!

Wow.... creative labs doesn't like competition eh?

EVIL! EEEEEeeeevil.