{"id":694082,"date":"2026-07-16T02:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694082\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T02:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T02:56:09","slug":"nvidia-thanks-sega-for-5-million-bet-that-changed-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694082\/","title":{"rendered":"Nvidia Thanks Sega For $5 Million Bet That Changed History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang<\/a> joined Sega\u2019s leadership, including its former president, in a Tokyo arcade on Wednesday to celebrate an important partnership between the two companies that proved integral to the graphics chip maker\u2019s later success. It was a fascinating moment that called back to the complex histories of both companies, but it also comes as Nvidia is currently blowing up the video game industry Sega depends on to survive, as the AI race fuels price spikes on hardware.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf not for what Sega did for Nvidia and what I Irimajiri-san did for Nvidia, Nvidia would not be here today,\u201d Huang said during the visit today<\/a>. He continued, \u201cTo imagine that in 1995, Nvidia was nearly out of business, that we had chosen exactly the wrong technology, and that we will be here today, the largest company in the world, is unimaginable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nvidia\u2019s initial graphics technology in the \u201990s lost out when Microsoft announced DirectX would not support it. It then failed to win a contract to manufacture the processor for Sega\u2019s Dreamcast. Despite ultimately being rejected by Sega, however, its president at the time, Shoichiro Irimajiri, moved forward with a $5 million bet on the small startup. It was enough to save Nvidia\u2019s fortunes, and the company later launched GeForce 256 and was eventually contracted to help with Microsoft\u2019s Xbox.<\/p>\n

Sega reportedly sold its stake in Nvidia for $15 million. Were it sold today, it would have netted over a trillion. \u201cI hope that everyone at Sega will be as proud as we are of the history of this collaboration between Nvidia and Sega that continues to this day,\u201d Huang said, via VGC<\/a>. \u201cIt is truly wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to nearly three decades later, and Nvidia is currently helping to transform gaming by fueling an AI arms race between competing LLM models and data center hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google. Ramping up the controversial technology requires an endless supply of chips, which in turn require RAM. The unprecedented shortage of that component is leading to a slow-burn reckoning across gaming as console makers and PC hardware sellers grapple with spiking prices.<\/p>\n

As the price of RAM doubles, console makers like Nintendo and Microsoft are feeling the pressure. The former lowered shipment forecasts for this upcoming year, and leadership at Xbox has already loudly complained about the challenges of delivering next-gen gaming hardware that\u2019s still affordable. Sega no longer makes a console. The Dreamcast that Nvidia lost the bid for was the Sonic publisher\u2019s last. But it relies on that ecosystem as much as anyone, and it\u2019s less clear than ever how it will look in five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined Sega\u2019s leadership, including its former president, in a Tokyo arcade on Wednesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,3352,96078,214,56,54,55,203810],"class_list":["post-694082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-nvidia","tag-ram","tag-sega","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-virtua-fighter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}