Nvidia nearly went out of business in 1996 trying to make Sega's Dreamcast GPU — instead, Sega America's CEO offered the company a $5 million lifeline

[erek]

Cool

“The answer picked by Irimajiri and Sega wound up being a $5 million investment into Nvidia, since Irimajiri had previously met Huang and taken a liking to him. While Irimajiri eventually stepped down from executive positions at Sega (and was briefly president of the whole company, not just the US branch), this investment was cashed out for $15 million afterward, helping keep Sega stable as the company departed the console business.


Now, one can't help but wonder. Would today's gaming and hardware be drastically different if Nvidia had actually succeeded in creating a Dreamcast-appropriate GPU? The Dreamcast's features, including online connectivity, were still very cutting-edge at the time of its release, beginning to blur the lines between gaming console and gaming PC. However, the Dreamcast's problems didn't really have anything to do with its internal hardware...so there's a non-zero chance Sega still would have exited the console business, either way.”

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...ffered-the-company-a-dollar5-million-lifeline

 

[Marees]

Imagine how rich Sega would be, if they hadn't cashed out !!

 

[Cactusj]

We were a Sega family growing up. Genesis, Saturn (ugh) and Dreamcast. The dreamcast was so much better hardware wise than the Playstation, and so forward looking, that if it had the game library it likely would have been okay. That wasnt the case, and the Playstation library crushed it hard.

That said, the dreamcast did have a bunch of really fun games that are still worth revisiting from time to time.

 

[socK]

obviously the only answer is for nvidia to repay the kindness and to fund dreamcast 2

we have the technology

 

[mnewxcv]

The dreamcast was great. That being said, the controller made my hands hurt after a while. But many cool innovations. I remember taking the memory card with the screen on it and playing some Sega gt mini game. I'm sure it'd look silly today, but the fact that a memory card had hardware like that is pretty cool.

 

[Armenius]

We were a Sega family growing up. Genesis, Saturn (ugh) and Dreamcast. The dreamcast was so much better hardware wise than the Playstation, and so forward looking, that if it had the game library it likely would have been okay. That wasnt the case, and the Playstation library crushed it hard.

That said, the dreamcast did have a bunch of really fun games that are still worth revisiting from time to time.

The game library wasn't there for it, I agree. Hardly any developer was making and releasing games for it outside Japan. The Saturn had the same problem, though I think the hardware in the Saturn scared developers away when 2D was its strength after 3D was already taking over the market.

You certainly couldn't fault Sega for its price or marketing, as I remember ads being blasted everywhere. Its release windows could have also played a factor. It came out just a year before the PlayStation 2, and Sony's dominant market position meant that most people were waiting for that console to release.