AIbox
The End of Xbox • NVIDIA's CPU Move • Meta's AMD Deal • Apple's Visual AI • Perplexity + Samsung • Mac Mini Made in the USA • Paramount's New WBD Bid • Deep Red iPhones
Is this the end of Xbox? My guess would be "yes", but only after Microsoft tries to give it one more go. In a way that yes, will undoubtedly look far more like a PC. In terms of games, I’m less worried they turn into some sort of AI slop studio, and I’m more intrigued if they try to use such games and development know-how to help build out their own AI. It’s perhaps not as crazy as it sounds. Unless you’re a gamer…
🕹️ Exbox
Microsoft will do one last Xbox push, but there’s probably not a longer path forward – unless AI saves the day; not in the way you think!
I Wrote…
💻 NVIDIA Inside
Can the AI powerhouse become a consumer PC player?
I Note…
🍪 Meta Clones OpenAI’s AMD Deal
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… AI model builder. AMD chips. 6GW worth of compute. Up to a 10% stake in AMD. The deal Meta just cut with AMD isn’t similar to the one OpenAI cut last year, it’s the same deal. And it leads to the question of why wouldn’t Amazon, or Anthropic, or Microsoft, or anyone else aside from maybe Google — though maybe Google too! — want to cut the same deal? I mean, at some point the limiting factor is AMD’s ability to give up only 100% of the company. But we have 80% to go. Well, as long as those pesky current investors in AMD don’t mind. And if all the milestones are hit for these deals, both OpenAI and Meta would own about $100B worth of AMD shares, as by my math, AMD would be worth right around $1T at the ultimate $600/share target — which obviously is not a coincidence. So yes, in a way, these could be actual $100B deals. Take that, NVIDIA. Are we about to get another "delighted" Jensen moment? He did just cut a big new deal with Zuck too… Also, is the room spinning for anyone else? Round and round we go… [WSJ 🔒]
👁️ Apple’s AI Future is Visual
On top of — and related to — Apple leveraging the iPhone to get back into the AI game, as it were, as a key hub for all these newfangled AI devices coming, they also have a real opportunity and lane when it comes to pulling in data from the real world, thanks to their multi-billion-device scale. I’ve long thought this could be key to their overall AI strategy and now Tim Cook may be telegraphing exactly that, as he tends to do ahead of new initiatives, as Mark Gurman notes. Clearly, Apple has already decided not to do frontier LLM work, and is happy to outsource that, but will they have the compute in place to be able to do "world models" with their data advantage? They’re still building up and out their own servers and chips… [Bloomberg 🔒]
🗣️ "Hey Plex" Will Samsung Buy Perplexity?
I’ve been saying I think that’s a possible outcome and this deeper integration within Samsung devices — including their own, custom wake word and physical controls — will only bolster that case. Still, Perplexity is just one of a few AI players that Samsung hopes to bake into "Galaxy AI", including their own "Bixby". [Engadget]
🏗️ Houston, We Have a Mac Mini
It didn’t exactly work with building the Mac Pro in Austin, so Apple is trying again with a new product in a new Texas city. It’s probably a good product to trot out there as it’s higher profile than the Mac Pro, but still low-volume — less than 5% of Mac sales and less than 1% of Apple’s overall sales, apparently — though you do have to wonder if the “OpenClaw Revolution” changes that equation. Probably not, but you keep seeing anecdotes about how surprised Apple Store employees are by rising Mac mini sales… Not to worry, the device will still be made in Asia too — but a good PR moment for Apple around American manufacturing (including the TSMC plants in Arizona which Apple will use to some degree too). Certainly better than a golden trinket. [WSJ 🔒]
💰 Paramount’s New Bid Is In
And Warner Bros Discovery is now going over it. Rumors have suggested it would be in the $32 or maybe $33/share range — up $2/$3. Netflix will now have four days to respond (or not). Do they stand firm? Up their bid a bit ($30 — again, they’re not trying to buy the networks like Paramount is?)? Walk? With a $2.8B consolation prize? Ted Sarandos keeps saying in every interview that they’ll be disciplined — but he’s still out there giving every interview (his chat with Matt Belloni on The Town is well worth the watch/listen). President Trump calling for the ouster of a Netflix board member obviously adds some last-minute chaos, as he likes to do. Director James Cameron siding with Paramount is another weird wrinkle — he was apparently pitching Netflix to make content for Meta "glasses" recently?! — as is actor Mark Ruffalo calling him out for bias! "Put a better deal on the table," Sarandos seemed exasperated on the red carpet for the BAFTAs. We’ll see soon enough if Paramount did! [NYT]
I Quote…
"But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you."
— Sam Altman, perhaps trying to showcase exactly what not to say when trying to make the pitch for AI’s energy usage. To be fair, his less controversial pitches seemingly haven’t been working too well either…
Asides…
Why must super-profitable Meta (and others) raising billions in debt to finance their AI build-outs? In part because they can (much easier than say, OpenAI — I remain curious if NVIDIA is going to help them there now), but also because of the way they handle stock-based compensation and buy-backs… [WSJ 🔒]
Are some companies using AI as a scapegoat for layoffs — "AI Washing" as Sam Altman calls it? Undoubtedly. [Gizmodo]
Yet more Gemini being baked into Chrome with AI Mode in the Omnibar… [9to5Google]
I actually think the way Amazon is using the Kindle Scribe to augment Alexa use cases is fairly clever. Their own unique AI hardware, in a way. [Verge]
I’m a sucker for weather apps — don’t ask how many I have, but it’s 12 — and so there’s simply no way I can avoid Acme Weather is it’s made by the same team that built Dark Sky and sold it to Apple. That’s lucky 13. [9to5Mac]
With Wuthering Heights shooting past $150M at the global box office, clearly Netflix made the wrong call in not agreeing to a theatrical release (and thus, losing the deal to Warner Bros — which is all the more interesting now!). [THR]
Pour one out for BrewDog? [SkyNews]
I Spy…
Is "Deep Red" this year’s "Cosmic Orange"? Undoubtedly Apple would call it something else — how about "Apple Red" to commemorate their 50th anniversary this year? — but I like the look of it… Too bad I think I’ll be getting the iPhone Fold, which will apparently only be in drab, "normal" colors…
