Game Consoles Xbox, Microsoft, Play Station, Sony, Killed PC Sound Cards, Sound EAX API, Intel 97, then Intel Azalea, CPU after Pentium 4, Mobile SOC DAC ACD integration tightly, iPod

Sound Blaster made IDE & later PCI sound cards for PC or personal computers in the 1990's

Music Streaming, Computer Gaming, Killer Apps required Motherboards to integrate Sound Processing

When Intel & Microsoft got together to put sound in the PC, this eventually doomed sound cards.

By the time the Play Station launched, first Xbox launched, even PC CPU & GPU CUDA offered high end 7.1 surround sound, elite headphone performance, even over USB-A connections, bidirectional gaming headsets with stereo speakers, synthetic 3D soundscape, and a boom mic to talk smack in games like CS or Counter Strike on Steam, CS2 lately. 

PCIe super fast storage, but Graphics Cards the killer user app for PCI slots in desktops ITX, mATX or full on full size ATX big dog units. 

I am typing this blog posting on an M2 MacBook Pro that has a 1/8 inch multi-function headphone jack.

If we look upon the motherboard and M2 chip of this machine, it features high fidelity audio functions, even over a USB-C connection with high bit rate able to move UHD video, so audio at 198 kilohertz sampling super easy as a simultaneous stream along with ultra high definition video. 

Even my VR headset, a Meta Quest 3S features a Qualcomm SOC with incredible audio performance. 

Everyone's smartphone SOC, system on a chip features high fidelity audio processing, including ADC and DAC for microphone and speakers, noting most phones like the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S whatever, have a pair of speakers that can pump out stereo sound, from the top earpiece speaker and bottom charging port location speaker, tiny rare earth magnet speakers featuring foam balls to improve sound performance, making the output sound more rich with more base notes and less tin like which would happen without the foam balls improving the sound pressure wave form spectrum. 

When Apple was working with IBM on the first iPod, Steve Jobs contacted Creative in Singapore, to work with them to integrate their sound technology into the iPod line, but Creative declines having their own MP3 player partnerships competing with the iPod, not seeing the sales potential of Apples music distribution AAC files on iTunes online, which came to dominate music sales and the CD players faded into tech history, discs physical kept alive with DVD and lastly BlueRay disks, but no new DISC formats after that, especially not for music alone. 

Something about writing all of this reminded me of the Microsoft Zune audio player & software. 

I don't even remember the name, but I had an MP3 player in college that used CF Compact Flash Memory Card, it was a Canadian Brand, made in Singapore, around 2001, Napster online download many gigabytes of MP3 music, over USB loaded them onto this portable CF card MP3 player.