The acquisition of Ageia Technologies by Nvidia Corp. was hardly a surprise, but it did came relatively unexpected primarily because neither Nvidia needed Ageia in the short-term, nor Ageia showed signs that it needed to be taken over. But what’s done is done and asked several questions to Michael Steele, who is vice president of marketing at Ageia, about the future of the company and PhysX.

“This Is The Time to Make an Aggressive Move Forward!”

There has always been a sacred circle for Ageia: on the one hand it needed to sell as many PhysX PPU add-in-cards to end-users to make game developers interested in implementing support for the hardware-accelerated physic into their titles, on the other hand, few end-users are interested in buying a hardware that will only be supported some time in future. As a result, Ageia PhysX PPU have not become popular at all, unlike PhysX SDK, which is used relatively widely during game development for the latest video game consoles.

But maybe this will change now that Ageia is a part of Nvidia Corp., currently the largest supplier of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs) for personal computers (PCs)?

: Why did you feel it was the time to become a part of a larger company?

Did you feel that the model, which relies on dedicated physics processing unit (PPU) hardware that should be acquired for $100 - $200 separately turned out to be unsuccessful?

Michael Steele: We’re happy that we were so instrumental in establishing physics as a meaningful category in PC and console gaming. We believe strongly in hardware-accelerated physics and believe the time is right to make an aggressive move forward.  By combining Ageia’s PhysX technology with Nvidia’s industry leading GPU architectures, we’ll ensure that gamers and developers alike take advantage of the most compelling physics on the market.

: What benefits can collaboration of Ageia and Nvidia bring the whole industry?

Michael Steele: Well, it’s clear that physics is one of the next great opportunities for gaming innovation. It is a substantial and visceral differentiator for game developers and a tremendous improvement to the gaming experience. The combination of Nvidia and Ageia technologies will deliver that next-generation experience. Everyone wins! Developers will now have a powerful industry leader dedicated to enabling physics across multiple platforms with an eye toward open access to the technology. Gamers will get the benefit of an increasingly better game experience and the opportunity for some dazzling GPU-enhanced physics.