Creative and its new Zii chip was looking real interesting before CES in Las Vegas. A report published by the Hurriyet DailyNews brings some light to a much darker story though. It seems that Creative has been suffering quite badly over the last year and posted a net loss of $19.7 million on sales of $736.8 million. It reported the lowest revenue in five years and the reason is said to be the plummeting sales of the its portable music players. At the end of 2007 Creative reported having 5,800 employees, by the end of 2008 the number was down to 3,100.
Whether the Zii chip will bring back Creative into the light and perhaps somehow improve the sales of its portable music players remains to be seen. However it seems like Creative has been trying to downplay the hype surrounding Zii, which makes it all the harder to interpret. epizenter.net has posted some updates on the Zii though, including pictures of an interface that is claimed to be from a Zii device, not necessarily a portable music player though.
Instead it seems like this could be an updated Xdock HD media player. A stationary device you connect to your TV and it can play back many different kinds of media. We will just have to wait until Creative unveils Zii at CES.
