Microchip giant Nvidia has become the latest mega-corporation to announce its interest in the burgeoning Metaverse ecosystem.
The reveal was made at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on January 4 when the graphics card maker said it has entered into technology deals with several Metaverse marketplaces.
Part of those deals would involve Nvidia distributing free software to artists and content creators working on Metaverse projects and items. The company is already a dominant force in the industry supplying graphics hardware and semiconductors needed to power virtual worlds.
It now aims to enter the software side of the business by distributing a free version of its “Omniverse” software to create virtual worlds according to a corporate blog post.
Hardware and software domination
The company is not planning to launch its own Metaverse as some other big names have announced, however, it wants to facilitate the development of virtual worlds and dominate both the hardware and software used to create them.
Nvidia’s Omniverse is a 3D design, collaboration, and simulation suite that typically costs $ 9,000 to purchase for enterprise users. The company describes software as a place where:
Creators, designers, researchers, and engineers can connect major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate in a shared virtual space.
Individual creators can use the suite to develop their content and then sell it in the Metaverse marketplaces to players and collectors. The four markets he has linked with are TurboSquid, CGTrader, Sketchfab and Twinbru from Shutterstock.
It added that Reallusion’s ActorCore, Daz3D, and e-on software’s PlantCatalog marketplaces will also be releasing Omniverse digital assets.
The software is compatible with high-end graphics hardware from Nvidia, GeForce RTX and NVIDIA RTX GPUs.
Nvidia stock surge
Nvidia stock (NVDA) has surged 130% over the past 12 months from $126 this time last year to the current after-hours trading price of $290 according to MarketWatch. It has actually outperformed Bitcoin by a factor of three as BTC has gained just 37% over the same period.
NVDA prices, however, have lost 4.6% since the opening of trading on Monday.
Semiconductors and graphics cards in particular are still suffering a major supply shortage across the world which has pushed prices sky-high. There are even thriving markets for used graphics cards, some of which are now fetching more than they cost when they were new!
