I'm not as pessimistic. 3dfx and Matrox didn't look like easy to knock out opponents in the 90s and yet here we are. Markets are powerful incentive mechanisms.
"Slowly grinds the mill of the gods, but it grinds fine."
"Slowly grinds the mill of the gods, but it grinds fine."
Matrox didn't give much of a damn to 3D gaming, 3Dfx were bust doing all the wrong things. It was certainly not "easy", but don't seems hard or impossible either at the time.