The trend was already glaringly obvious.
The Wall Street sharks were tearing through Southeast Asia, and the Bank of Thailand's defenses were crumbling, leaving a trail of financial carnage in their wake.
This was an epic financial battle of such scale that ordinary people didn't even have the right to watch from the sidelines. A single misstep could mean total ruin.
Yet, they were securely seated on Sega's sturdy ship, poised to claim the most lucrative share of the spoils.
Hoshino suppressed a smile as he instructed his assistant to record each director's subscription amount.
"Once the funds are in place, we will route them through offshore accounts to bypass all regulatory oversight and tracking," Hoshino said, gathering the documents and bowing slightly to the room. "Gentlemen, please wait patiently for good news over the coming months."
Takuya Nakayama leaned back in his chair, took a sip of his coffee, and gazed through the floor-to-ceiling window at the gloomy horizon.
The fire in Southeast Asia was finally about to ignite completely.
The heavy walnut doors of the conference room swung open, and natural light from the hallway flooded in, dispelling the stale air within.
Takuya Nakayama reached up and loosened the tie that had been choking him for hours, then casually handed the financial reports on Southeast Asian capital repatriation—the ones he'd just used in the board meeting—to the assistant following behind him.
"Managing Director, Mr. Huang from NVIDIA has been waiting in the second-floor VIP lounge for half an hour," the assistant reported in a low, cautious tone as he took the documents.
Takuya nodded, cracked his stiff neck, and turned toward the stairs.
When he pushed open the door to the VIP lounge, Jensen Huang was seated on a single-person sofa, a cup of black coffee—no longer steaming—in his hand. His gaze was fixed on a point in the air, as if he were lost in thought.
At the sound of the door opening, Jensen immediately set down his cup and rose to greet him.
"Apologies, the board meeting ran longer than expected," Takuya said, striding forward with a smile and extending his hand.
They shook hands, the grip firm and solid.
Compared to their previous meetings, Jensen's handshake now held a palpable note of respect.
"I understand," Jensen said, settling back into the sofa. He pushed a thick document on the coffee table toward Takuya. "I heard President Nakayama has been unwell, so the burden of Sega now rests on your shoulders. It's only natural that you'd be busy. I flew to Tokyo overnight specifically to deliver this to you in person."
Takuya sat on the opposite sofa and picked up the document.
The cover bore NVIDIA's striking green logo, with a bold line of text beneath it: NV3 Project Progress and RIVA128 Mass Production Plan.
The first few pages were densely packed with detailed test data, yield reports, and tape-out schedules.
"How's the yield?" Takuya Nakayama asked casually, skimming the data at a glance.
"Better than our most optimistic projections!" Jensen Huang leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes gleaming with irrepressible excitement. "We owe this to Sega's help. TSMC gave our 8-inch wafer line the highest priority scheduling! Takuya, honestly, without your shares and influence at TSMC, the RIVA128 would never have reached the mass production readiness stage so quickly. All the major players were lined up; we wouldn't have even gotten a drop of the soup."
Jensen Huang knew exactly how much he owed them.
Sega's investment in NVIDIA in North America, followed by the masterful acquisition of a stake in TSMC through various ingenious means, were two brilliant moves. They had directly cleared the path for NVIDIA, from funding to production capacity. Otherwise, with NVIDIA's meager size at the time, they wouldn't have even made a ripple in the chip foundry market.
"It was a mutually beneficial arrangement," Takuya Nakayama said, closing the proposal and tossing it onto the coffee table. "Sega needed a powerful graphics chip, and you needed production capacity. It was a perfect match. The market feedback on the NV1 is right there in black and white. We made you halt the pre-research on the NV2 against all odds and pour all your resources into the NV3. Looking back, that decision was the right one, wasn't it?"
At the mention of "NV1," Jensen Huang's facial muscles twitched slightly, a trace of lingering fear crossing his face.
That was NVIDIA's debut work, a bloody lesson that had nearly dragged the company into the abyss. The dead end of quad rendering had cost them dearly. If the young man before him hadn't pointed out the correct direction with such precision back then, NVIDIA would probably have gone bankrupt by now.
"Completely abandoning the quad architecture and fully pivoting to the Direct3D5 and OpenGL standards," Jensen Huang said, taking a deep breath, his tone tinged with a hint of reverence. "That was the most correct decision NVIDIA has ever made. Now, our driver team is like a sponge, soaking up everything in that open-source engine technology community you're spearheading."
Takuya Nakayama picked up the teapot from the coffee table and poured himself a cup of warm water. He chuckled softly. "Carmack and his crew must be giving you plenty of feedback, aren't they? That guy doesn't hold back."
"Feedback? It's more like flaying us alive." Jensen Huang shook his head, but a smile spread across his face. "Those technical maniacs are scrutinizing our low-level code with a microscope, refusing to let a single line of redundancy slide. But that's exactly what we need! The open-source engine project hasn't just shared the massive cost of driver development; it's provided us with a goldmine of real-world requirements from frontline developers. Many of the inspirations for the RIVA128's hardware lighting and texture compression were forged in the fires of that community!"
Taking a sip of water, Takuya set the cup down. He leaned forward, his casual demeanor vanishing as his gaze sharpened.
"Since the RIVA128 is finalized and about to hit the market, what about the next generation?"
Jensen paused, his eyes meeting Takuya's for a few seconds as if weighing the significance of the question.
"The NV4?" Jensen Huang tapped his knee twice, a subconscious gesture. "It's just entered the preliminary research phase. The architectural approach is still being debated. Our primary goal is to further increase the pixel fill rate and support a more complex 3D instruction set. Why? Does Sega have something in mind?"
"Excellent." Takuya Nakayama crossed his hands on the table, dropping a bombshell. "Sega is also preparing to enter the preliminary research phase for our next-generation home console."
The announcement caused the air in the VIP room to go silent for several seconds.
Jensen Huang's mind raced through the industry landscape.
Sega's Jupiter console was currently dominating the market. Nintendo's N64 had just launched, but the real threat was Sony. The PlayStation, currently overshadowed, would never accept defeat. They were undoubtedly plotting a massive comeback for the next console war. Sega's decision to start development on their next-gen machine now was a strategic, preemptive strike.
"You want NVIDIA to participate in your new console project?" Jensen asked tentatively, his breathing quickening slightly.
"Not participate," Takuya corrected, shaking his head. "I want NVIDIA to exclusively design a graphics chip based on your next-generation architecture for Sega's next-gen console."
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