SGI dug their own grave. Not only were the workstations expensive, but they demanded outrageously priced support contracts. This behavior drives people nuts and will insure that the switch to a competitor the instant it becomes an option. Despite the high cost, the support contracts had a pretty lousy reputation as well, with long wait times for repairs from a handful of overworked techs. Even worse is the company turned away from its core competencies to focus on being an also-ran in the PC workstation market.

There was a window in the mid-90s where it would have been possible for SGI to develop a PC 3D accelerator for the consumer market using their GE technology, but nobody in the C-Suite had the stomach to make a new product that would undercut the enormous profit margins on their core product. It's the classic corporate trap. Missing out on the next big thing because you can't see past next quarter's numbers. Imagine basically an N64 on a PCI card for $150 in 1996. The launch versions could be bundled with a fully accelerated version of Quake. The market would have exploded.