NVidia buys Ageia

Ageia is a small company founded in 2002 that has tried in recent years to wedge its PhysX chips in the realm of video games. The PhysX-friendly coding paired with their dedicated physics-processing PCI cards greatly improve the rendering of video games, producing very realistic, stimulating effects.
Even though intentions are good, there are only a few games on the PC have been optimized with PhysX coding. With only a few games optimized, few cards were sold, and thus, few developers were tempted to write with PhysX in mind.
NVidia has probably saved the company in deciding to purchase it. Eventually, one could find PhysX support in their graphics chips, which could entice developers to implement the technology. Last September, Intel had purchased Havok-developed solutions that rival those of Ageia.
Another problem arises in this kind of acquisition. In recent years, strategies (AMD) ATI and NVidia began to diverge in the technological choices made in their hardware. At this point in time, the differences are few, but if each company begins to implement their proprietary technologies, it might become necesary to install one of each type in one's machine in order to enjoy all games.