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Nvidia Shuts Down Its GeForce Partner Program, Citing Misinformation (theregister.co.uk)
In a blog post on Friday, Nvidia announced it is "pulling the plug" on the GeForce Partner Program (GPP) due to the company's unwillingness to combat "rumors" and "mistruths" about the platform. The GPP has only been active for a couple of months. It was launched as a way for gamers to know exactly what they're buying when shopping for a new gaming PC. "With this program, partners would provide full transparency regarding the installed hardware and software in their products," reports Digital Trends. From the report: Shortly after the launch, unnamed sources from add-in card and desktop/laptop manufacturers came forward to reveal that the program will likely hurt consumer choice. Even more, they worried that some of the agreement language may actually be illegal while the program itself could disrupt the current business they have with AMD and Intel. They also revealed one major requirement: The resulting product sports the label "[gaming brand] Aligned Exclusively with GeForce." As an example, if Asus wanted to add its Republic of Gamers (RoG) line to Nvidia's program, it wouldn't be allowed to sell RoG products with AMD-based graphics. Of course, manufacturers can choose whether or not to join Nvidia's program, but membership supposedly had its "perks" including access to early technology, sales rebate programs, game bundling, and more.
According to Nvidia, all it asked of its partners was to "brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear." The company says it didn't want "substitute GPUs hidden behind a pile of techno-jargon." Specifications for desktops and laptops tend to list their graphics components and PC gamers are generally intelligent shoppers that don't need any clarification. Regardless, Nvidia is pulling the controversial program because the "rumors, conjecture, and mistruths go far beyond" the program's intent.
According to Nvidia, all it asked of its partners was to "brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear." The company says it didn't want "substitute GPUs hidden behind a pile of techno-jargon." Specifications for desktops and laptops tend to list their graphics components and PC gamers are generally intelligent shoppers that don't need any clarification. Regardless, Nvidia is pulling the controversial program because the "rumors, conjecture, and mistruths go far beyond" the program's intent.
PC gamers are generally intelligent shoppers that don't need any clarification
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A Lie algebra is a vector space together with a non-associative, alternating bilinear map , called the Lie bracket, satisfying the Jacobi identity.
I heard the entire document was leaked absolutely word for word verbatim. But no, guys, it's misinformation and misinterpretations. I am not misinformed about bullying your competition out of top product line names. That is what that was, the end.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/1...
Ahhh, so is Nvidia now going to give out refunds for the re-branding costs? Or just sit back and laugh as they got what they wanted without having to give anything in return? Companies made new brands and now Nvidia doesn't have to give them the cherry picked GPUs. Disgusting.
Now that Nvidia is giving out refunds for the re-branding costs ... wait, that won't ever happen. So now Nvidia is laughing because they don't have to fulfill their end of the deal but get dedicated branding anyway! Disgusting.
There seems to be a big problem with "substitute GPUs hidden behind techno-jargon" these days, whatever that is.
Convincing PC makers like Dell and HP to join a program where they got special access and prices to Intel CPUs, in exchange for an exclusivity contract which prohibited the PC maker from selling AMD computers?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A lot has been said recently about our GeForce Partner Program. The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program.
What they actually meant: "You were all right about the GPP and what we were trying to do with it, we got caught red-handed and it backfired spectacularly, and now we'll just try to sweep it all under the rug as quickly and unceremoniously as possible."
Its one reason I gave up on PC gaming. Lot of shady graphic card makers calling crappy cards good enough for gaming. Even PC makers try to sell a load of crap about a cheap barely better then Intel card. Frankly I can't believe what is sold out there claiming latest games capable. Kudo's to Nvidia for trying, but all I can say is buyer beware.
The card manufacturer brands simply aren't that strong, all the publicity about about brand splitting was just giving AMD free advertising with no benefit to NVIDIA. Worse, if they force ASUS to create new brands for AMD they might just launch Freesync only high end monitors ,,, which is not at all to NVIDIA's benefit.
Some manager thought he was clever and tried to turn third party hardware partnership into just as effective an anti-competitive tool as software support, but they just don't work the same. Not so clever.
And now they claim that their probably quite illegal act has just been "misunderstood" and is hence somebody else's fault. I think they pretty much panicked when they talked to some actually competent lawyers about what they had done. May also gave gotten some friendly warnings and an ultimatum from the competition.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
According to Nvidia, all it asked of its partners was to "brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear."
My laptop has a sticker on it that says "Powered by nVidia Quadro" How much more clear do they need to be?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Telling people that they "misunderstood" when they understood perfectly well is gaslighting. If that's really what's happening then it's really sad that they stoop to that level.
"Misinformation".
Caught trying to bully people for exclusivity, products already came out to prove the dirty tactic was working, and refused to reply to questions made by costumers, people covering the subject, and whatnot.
More likely caught red handed with shady tactics to corner the market and wanted to avoid a lawsuit.
See guys, it wasn't only that nVidia was trying to put nVidia products into a separate brand than the competition, it's that they wanted exclusivity, they were shutting down access for bloggers and YouTubers for covering the subject, and the whole thing was done under threats against manufacturers and brands not being able to have access to all the benefits of a partner program if they didn't follow suit.
The very basic strategy of "do you know who we are? If you don't do this you will never work with us again".
Branding doesn't come cheap, which means most smaller manufacturers and even bigger ones didn't really want to create an entire new brand just to differentiate something that every freaking gamer worth their money already knew about. Most of the branding they've created for gamers was exactly that - to different products that were for gaming. Not to differentiate products that used x brand of graphics card.
So what it effectively does is putting an extra barrier for smaller manufacturers to offer a line with AMD cards.
And why the f*ck should nVidia be allowed to mandate desktop and laptop manufacturers to create a separate brand for their cards alone?
Should manufacturers now also create a new brand only for Intel Wi-fi chips? For y brand of Ram memory? etc etc... see, of course the specs have to be clear, but there is no reason to force manufacturers to create separate branding for each and every component on a gaming rig.
Can you imagine anyone in this particular market category being confused about desktops and laptops coming with an nVidia graphics card and an AMD one? With all the labeling and all the front page specs ads that we have?
I agree. Unfortunately also quite non-surprising. Just a standard technique to avoid responsibility and put a "spin" on things.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
everyone feels sad for you. you, and everyone like you. we used to make fun of people like you, but now the sjw's make these words so not politically correct to use. just know, we still laugh at you behind your back,and for god sake wipe your nose. a long trail of snots leaking down your face is not a good look. if there weren't protections against people like you, i might be bothered to give you a wedgie and kick your ass.
Telling people that they "misunderstood" when they understood perfectly well is gaslighting. If that's really what's happening then it's really sad that they stoop to that level.
sjw monitor just beeped..... (gaslighting) fuck off.