It sure won't be good for consumers (AMD or Intel or Nvidia) if Intel and Nvidia are the only games in town -- think astronomical prices and very slow release of new stuff. We'll see.
Except the market has changed and that's no longer true. If this was 2001, yeah, it would be bad if AMD and ATI vanished. Without them today, though, it's far more dire. People don't NEED PCs anymore. If nvidia and Intel increase prices for less improvement, the drop in sales will accelerate. They won't price themselves out of the market, since they would BE the market, they would instead DESTROY the market.
How many people would own a car if the only choices were a Ferrari and a Mercedes? People would instead get bikes, take buses, trains, etc. Make PCs too pricey and people will just get tablets and "smart" devices for internet use and gaming. The PC is no longer the only way to do all these things.
Intel and nvidia aren't competing with AMD...they're competing with Apple, and Samsung, and LG, and HTC. If people have a choice between spending $500 on a subpar laptop or an iPad...
The Jedi Master
Yes and no. Yes in that tablets can fill the void in some instances; no in that things that require computers/internet are much more common now than in 2001. A tablet can do things, but it is far slower and more time consuming to do the same tasks when compared to a PC. Even typing this post would take 3-4 times as long.
Same for gaming. I don't have interest in phone games and when presented with the option I tend to prefer reading something or watching youtube instead. So there really isn't a substitute for PC games, aside from consoles (which Nvidia would also make money from). Although they do make a lot less from console sales compared to discrete GPUs... so it would be in their interest not to price themselves too high.
