Individual consumers aren't the only ones cruising for bargains this holiday season; apparently at least one graphics card company is snapping up a great deal, too. We all knew that 3dfx was already in rough financial waters-- and then this accursed "worldwide PC sales slowdown" threatened to capsize it completely. In comes NVIDIA, who just happens to be shopping for a nice little gift for its stockholders. And so, as faithful viewer Dave kindly pointed out, last Friday NVIDIA acquired 3dfx's "core graphics assets" for roughly $112 million in cash and stock. The company's press release is essentially a thinly-veiled "hey, look at the great deal we found!" touchdown dance.

The deal isn't done yet; 3dfx's shareholders still have to approve the deal, but given that TDFX was last seen hovering around the $0.19 mark, the market may be thrilled to say "don't let the door whack you in the butt on the way out." Assuming the deal does go through, NVIDIA gets to swallow its longtime enemy whole, absorb a bunch of nifty 3D technology, and end some pesky patent infringement litigation all in one swell foop. We haven't the foggiest idea whether NVIDIA will continue to sell 3dfx's technology, or simply mount it on the wall like a trophy kill. If the company opts for the latter course, then that's one fewer option for us Mac users when we're shopping for graphics cards. However, NVIDIA has made noises about leaping into the Mac market in the past, so hopefully one way or the other the company will eventually represent some healthy competition for ATI.

Longtime chroniclers of the Macintosh story will note that this effectively concludes the "Voodoo Curse." Ever since the appearance of the first Mac-compatible graphics card featuring a 3dfx Voodoo chipset, almost every company that has produced Mac Voodoo cards has suffered a loathsome fate. The first was Techworks, who made the Voodoo-based Power3D; the company was bought out and its Mac business was summarily discontinued. MicroConversions tried to sell Mac-compatible Voodoo 2 cards, but production nightmares and astronomical prices shut the company down. Mactell made a Mac-specific Voodoo 3 card before closing its doors and blaming Apple for its fate. And then 3dfx made its own Mac-specific Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 products-- buh-bye, 3dfx. Hmmm... if the people at NVIDIA know what's good for them, maybe they shouldn't sell Mac Voodoo cards. That's okay. We'll settle for a GeForce2, instead.