The End of the NV2

Just say no to triangles

Despite Sega of America's and the AM2 representative's best efforts, NVIDIA remained adamant on using quadratic texture maps and refused to concentrate on triangle primitives. In the end, our sources tell us that NVIDIA may have eventually agreed to support better acceleration for triangles, but by then, Sega of Japan had already begun to distance itself from NVIDIA, and Sega's US team was quietly told "not to worry about the NVIDIA thing anymore."

As a Japanese company, Sega could never kill a deal, for there was a need to maintain honor and face. These cultural elements can be seen today when top Japanese executives choose to demote themselves after poor earnings reports, or when disappointing employees are "transferred" to small offices and given no assignments rather than fired. The expectation is that the shame alone will lead the employee to quit himself.

Pico?

NVIDIA was relegated to this similar position. Sega told NVIDIA that they were still contracted to provide a chip for Sega, but that it was not going to be used in its next generation console. The plan was to use the chip in a less demanding multimedia consumer product, probably the next-generation Sega Pico.

The Sega Pico, as some of you may not know, was a kid's educational toy targeted for children, 2-8 years old. It was a stylus and tablet that connected to the TV and used cartridges as its media. The Pico had such great titles as "Magic Crayons", "Richard Scarry's Huckle Lowly's Busiest Day Ever", and even a few Disney titles. Basically, NVIDIA was most likely delegated to work on a glorified See 'n Say.

The death of NV2

What was the actual performance of the NV2? The truth will never be known. When the first silicon came back, it didn't work. NVIDIA respun the chip a few more times, but it soon became clear that the chip had more than just minor problems. With such dismal results, the NV2 team eventually called it quits. To the best of our knowledge, the NV2 never existed as a working product.