Nvidia faces backlash from gamers who feel abandoned for AI

For its first 30 years, Nvidia wasn’t a household name unless you were a gamer. Now, some of its original fan base feel left behind as artificial intelligence has made the chipmaker the world’s most valuable company. 

“The gaming segment is no longer the driving force of the company. There was one point when it clearly was,” said Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research.

Nvidia popularized the graphics processing units, or GPUs, that enable fast frame rates and rendering that make the best video game play possible. 

When Nvidia released its first GPU in 1999, the GeForce 256, it laid off the majority of workers and approached bankruptcy to make it happen. Gamers snapped up the new type of processor, bringing Nvidia back from the brink.

Now, with demand for AI soaring, nearly all of Nvidia’s revenue comes from its products that serve that industry, instead of gaming. And as AI chipmaking shrinks the available memory supply, Nvidia has been forced to make tough decisions about priorities.

In a memory-constrained reality, it’s not shocking that Nvidia would prioritize its far more profitable data center GPUs such as Hopper and Blackwell.

Nvidia’s operating margins in its compute and networking segment averaged 69% over the past three years, compared to a 40% margin for the consumer-forward graphics segment.

“I understand that they’re going to chase that. And that breaks my heart,” said Greg Miller, co-founder and host of popular video game podcast Kinda Funny Games Daily in an interview with CNBC.

“Dance with the one who brought you. Gamers have brought you this far,” Miller added.

If analyst predictions are correct, 2026 will be the first year in three decades that Nvidia doesn’t release a new generation of its consumer-facing GeForce line of graphics processing units.

Gamers are “hugely important” to Nvidia, according to an email the company sent to CNBC, adding that it’s “always innovating, testing and releasing” new gaming-focused technologies.

The current RTX 50 series of GeForce GPU was unveiled at CES in January 2025. 

But with 2026 CES and GTC in the rearview mirror, some worry this will be the first year without a new generation, although Nvidia does commonly reveal new hardware as late as September.

While it represents a big strategy pivot, some gamers say it’s not a bad move for their budgets. 

“It’s kind of hard to keep up. You can’t upgrade every single year, so having a bit of a break and waiting for a generation to really matter I think is actually in service of the gamers out there,” said Tim Gettys, Miller’s co-founder of Kinda Funny Games.