Nvidia Entering Metaverse Race With Marketplace Tie-Ups and Free Software

Microchip giant Nvidia has become the latest mega-corporation to announce its interest in the burgeoning Metaverse ecosystem.

The revelation was made at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Jan. 4 when the graphics card manufacturer stated that it has made 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 for creating virtual worlds according to a company 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 which usually costs $9,000 to purchase for corporate users. The company describes the 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 on Metaverse marketplaces to gamers and collectors. The four marketplaces it had tied up with are Shutterstock’s TurboSquid, CGTrader, Sketchfab, and Twinbru.

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 Nvidia’s top-end graphics hardware, 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 have lost 4.6% since the opening of trading on Monday, however.

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!

Despite this, Nvidia’s third quarterly report stated that crypto mining chip sales in particular had fallen.