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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.
Nvidia didn't say that. Digitaltrends did.
Mind you it doesn't make the program any less questionable, especially if the techno jargon you're hiding is the performance features.
Hey come buy the new Ford Mustang by Ford, because Ford Ford. It has some seats, and all the horsepowers. It has the things you expect, supports all kinds of drivers, and comes in red and black, wheels included in price.
God I miss car analogies.
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.
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."
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.