It kind of boggles my mind how short the lifespan of these companies were during periods of great technological advancement.
3dfx is founded in August 1994. The Sony Playstation came out in Japan in December of 1994.
It's heyday is roughly 1996-2000, less than 4 years. Then it goes bankrupt in 2002, just 8 years after its founding.
Within that time period we go from games like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (released 1994), to Grand Theft Auto III (released October 2001). Just a massive amount of technological shift in a span of 6-7 years.
Feels like something is similar going on with AI right now. Compare the image generating DALL-E1 released in January 2021 to Google's Veo 2 released in January 2025. Just insane progress in 4 years.
normally companies that exploded in value at ipo brought lots of competition short term.
i guess that's a thing of the past after quantitative easing scams and the latter capital shift. why fund a competitor if your capital is already riding there? not many people at the roulette anymore.
Apparently 3dfx had a contract with Sega for making the Dreamcast GPU, but IPO'd in 1997. As part of the IPO they disclosed the terms of the contract, and the next gen console at Sega was a closely guarded secret at the time to avoid cannibalizing Sega Saturn sales (which were abysmal).
The contract with 3dfx was canceled leading to a lawsuit. Then Sega of America CEO disclosed they were abandoning the Saturn for the next gen console. The console did not release in Japan until November 1998 and in America until September 1999. The CEO of Sega of America Bernie Stolar was fired just days before the release, partially due to these shenanigans, and the Dreamcast as a whole was such a failure it nearly killed the company.
3dfx is founded in August 1994. The Sony Playstation came out in Japan in December of 1994.
It's heyday is roughly 1996-2000, less than 4 years. Then it goes bankrupt in 2002, just 8 years after its founding.
Within that time period we go from games like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (released 1994), to Grand Theft Auto III (released October 2001). Just a massive amount of technological shift in a span of 6-7 years.
Feels like something is similar going on with AI right now. Compare the image generating DALL-E1 released in January 2021 to Google's Veo 2 released in January 2025. Just insane progress in 4 years.