When did Sega actually bail out Nvidia?

[Danthrax]

https://kotaku.com/nvidia-thanks-sega-for-5-million-investment-that-saved-it-as-it-now-unleashes-ramageddon-on-the-gaming-industry-2000716308

Outlets keep parroting that Sega made a $5 million investment in 1995 that saved Nvidia from bankruptcy after the company failed to deliver a chip Sega had ordered. But that timeline just doesn’t make sense to me.

According to their SEC filing from January 22, 1999, Nvidia entered into a contract in May 1995 with a third party to develop the NV2 to incorporate into the third party’s products. It also says that sometime during 1995, the third party provided $2 million to Nvidia for research and development. That third party is almost certainly Sega, we now know.

Then in July 1995, the SEC filing says that the third party for which Nvidia was developing the NV2 to incorporate into the third party’s products purchased 750,000 shares of Nvidia stock for $5 million as part of an agreement to develop the technology.

The old Nvidia website’s corporate timeline also said a Sega partnership was established in July 1995, for what it’s worth.

Then on July 31, Sega announced in a press release an exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia to convert Sega Saturn and arcade software to CD-ROMs for Pentium-based PCs equipped with NVIDIA’s Multimedia Accelerators.

Finally, sometime during 1996, development on the NV2 is canceled after the third party for which the NV2 was being developed “revised its product development plans,” according to the Nvidia SEC filing. It also said the third party for which the NV2 was being developed provided $3 million to Nvidia for research & development in 1996.

So the month that Sega and Nvidia announced a partnership to port Saturn games to the soon-to-be-launched NV1 graphics card, which coincides with the $5 million stock purchase that Jensen always seems to be talking about, is the same month that Nvidia conceded it couldn’t deliver the NV2 on time and asked Sega to pay the remainder of the contract?

But then why did Sega apparently also pay Nvidia another $3 million in 1996? And why does Nvidia’s SEC filing say the NV2 was canceled in 1996 and not 1995?

Doesn’t it seem weird to announce a partnership at the same time that your partner has admitted to failing to meet a contract and essentially begged to be paid anyway?

And Sega did port four games to the NV1 — Virtua Fighter Remix in November 1995, Panzer Dragoon in January 1996, Daytona USA in May 1996 and Virtua Squad (aka Virtua Cop) in November 1996. Although Virtua Squad shipped with a DirectX version on the same disc as the NV1 version, so a tide had turned there by that point.

But clearly, Sega continued to support Nvidia well into 1996. I think Jensen’s memory is hazy and he actually canceled the NV2 in 1996, and Sega agreed to pay that last $3 million despite knowing Nvidia couldn’t deliver. The $5 million stock purchase was the previous year when I think Nvidia was still working on the NV2 — and it was part of the May contract, according to the SEC filing.

I know it’s not an earth-shattering distinction, but I think it’s important to be accurate.

Sources:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/0000898430-99-000180.txt
http://web.archive.org/web/19970228082820/http://www.nvidia.com/corporate/prsega_nv.html
https://www.nvidia.com/content/timeline/time_95.html

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