Nvidia and it’s ION 2 graphics chipset is forcing Intel’s hand.  People want to watch online video and they want to do it in HD.  While Adobe’s Flash player 10.1 helps integrated Intel video cards stream video better there is no real solution for high definition video.

Intel won’t have a home grown integrated solution until 2011 and that’s just not good enough.  Instead of continuing to lose share to AMD they’ve decide to join forces with Broadcom to add 1080p HD viewing to their line of Atom netbook processors.  Intel will be using the Broadcom’s BCM70015 for HD decoding which will only do half of what Nvidia is doing with their ION platform.  Users will be able to watch online video but not play video games.  This difference will split higher end netbooks where people will decide on an option based on if they want to play PC games or just want to use their netbook for entertainment purposes.

[Source: Fudzilla]

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