Based on what little I do know about GPUs, it seems to me that they are aiming for a hardware-fixed pipeline as a first step, and want to move towards general shader based architecture only as a very-very stretched goal. Am I right? If I see it right what is the reason for that? Couldn't they just jump to a modern architecture, instead of following the evolution of the industry? Excuse me for my ignorance, it's possible that even my assumptions are wrong.