NVIDIA's Console Chip

NV2

NVIDIA's financial savior came in the form of a video game console, more specifically, a Sega video game console. Through the NV1, NVIDIA had established a strong working relationship with Sega. The chip promoted sales of Saturn accessories and Sega programmers were somewhat familiar with quadratic surfaces after having ported a small number of games for the NV1. Most importantly, Direct3D was a non-issue because many of the Japanese console developers were ready and willing to use the unconventional technology of quadratic surfaces if it brought additional performance.

Sega funded a significant portion of the research on the NV2 and it is reasonable to suggest that NVIDIA might not exist it its capacity today if it were not for Sega's support of the NV2. Unfortunately, Sega eventually dropped the NV2 to give the Dreamcast a better future through an easier programming environment. Sega ended up going to 3dfx and later to PowerVR for the graphics technology in the Dreamcast. Little else is known about the NV2 story and the timing of events. Despite limited success of the NV1 and failure of the NV2, NVIDIA was not ready to quit.

The Battle Plan

NVIDIA learned from its tactical mistake of using quadratic surfaces rather than polygons. Though quadratic surfaces were certainly better on paper, it was common sense that any kind of performance advantage will be meaningless without developer support. Thus, NVIDIA decided that it would be the first 3D company without a proprietary native-mode API. While 3dfx had GLIDE, PowerVR had PowerSGL, and ATI had 3DCIF, NVIDIA proclaimed that Direct3D was its native-mode. Direct3D allowed software developers to write code that worked across a number of different graphics chips. Furthermore, using Direct3D exclusively also helped NVIDIA bring the marketing power of Microsoft behind their product.

In addition, NVIDIA decided to drop the idea of a single-chip multimedia accelerator and instead concentrated on 2D/3D PC graphics to keep costs down. Finally, in perhaps the smartest move of all, the company adopted a then seemingly outrageous six-month product cycle that not only allowed the company to make a rapid comeback, but also provided a safety net that prevented any single mistake from becoming a company-ending disaster.