NVIDIA Terminates GeForce Partner Program
by Ryan Smith on May 4, 2018 8:00 PM EST
Just as quickly as it came into being, NVIDIA’s GeForce Partner Program has come to an end.
In a short article posted to their website today, NVIDIA’s Director of Product Marketing, John Teeple, announced that the program has been cancelled. In making the unexpected decision, Teeple stated “The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its [the GeForce Partner Program’s] intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program” and that “today we are pulling the plug on GPP to avoid any distraction from the super exciting work we’re doing to bring amazing advances to PC gaming.” No further information was provided on just what canceled entails, and what this means for existing program partners.
NVIDIA’s GeForce Partner Program is been divisive, to put it lightly. After news of it broke in March and was confirmed by NVIDIA, the program quickly attracted a good deal of negative attention out of concerns over what it meant for the competitive market, and a general degree of mean spiritedness. Adding fuel to the fire, few details of the program were ever confirmed by NVIDIA – with the company seeing little benefit in doing so – which left a great void open for rumors and unsourced reports of all kinds.
Ultimately NVIDIA’s goal with the program was to more thoroughly isolate its partner ecosystem, in the process ensuring that GeForce-aligned brands were just that: GeForce aligned, and that non-GeForce products weren’t sold under the same brand. NVIDIA cited this as a means of transparency so that consumers could be confident that they were buying GeForce products. In practice, the program left NVIDIA with a credibility problem, and the lack of details means that we’ll likely never know for sure the true extent of NVIDIA’s motivations with the program.
Even with this change, NVIDIA is looking to portray it as a positive (or at least neutral) change, noting that “This is a great time to be a GeForce partner and be part of the fastest growing gaming platform in the world. The GeForce gaming platform is rich with the most advanced technology.” Still, the lack of transparency means that it’s not clear what happens next for NVIDIA, or for that matter their partners who were already participating.
Some partners, particularly industry juggernaut ASUS, had already realigned their brands and had launched their AMD-specific brands, in ASUS’s case the new-yet-old Arez brand. The termination of the GeForce Partner Program presumably leaves the door open to ASUS folding these products back into their existing brands. However what they’ll actually do remains to be seen. It does no doubt bring a sigh of relief to AMD themselves, as AMD stood to be the biggest (corporate) loser as a result of the program, and has been ramping up their own “Freedom of Choice” advertising program.
Ultimately at the end of the day this means that the video card market returns to a state of status quo, at least for however long the newly revived status quo lasts.
Pulling the Plug on GPP, Leaning into GeForce
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.
GPP had a simple goal – ensuring that gamers know what they are buying and can make a clear choice.
NVIDIA creates cutting-edge technologies for gamers. We have dedicated our lives to it. We do our work at a crazy intense level – investing billions to invent the future and ensure that amazing NVIDIA tech keeps coming. We do this work because we know gamers love it and appreciate it. Gamers want the best GPU tech. GPP was about making sure gamers who want NVIDIA tech get NVIDIA tech.
With GPP, we asked our partners to brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear. The choice of GPU greatly defines a gaming platform. So, the GPU brand should be clearly transparent – no substitute GPUs hidden behind a pile of techno-jargon.
Most partners agreed. They own their brands and GPP didn’t change that. They decide how they want to convey their product promise to gamers. Still, today we are pulling the plug on GPP to avoid any distraction from the super exciting work we’re doing to bring amazing advances to PC gaming.
This is a great time to be a GeForce partner and be part of the fastest growing gaming platform in the world. The GeForce gaming platform is rich with the most advanced technology. And with GeForce Experience, it is “the way it’s meant to be played.”
Source: NVIDIA
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WereCatf - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
"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." -- "You were all right about the GPP and what we were trying to do with it, but we failed and now we'll just try to sweep it all under the rug as quickly and unceremoniously as possible."Chaitanya - Saturday, May 5, 2018 - link
Lets hope they still get investigate and fined for pulling this BS on consumers.BenSkywalker - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Antitrust violations require you to be a monopoly.Antitrust violations require you to be a monopoly.
Antitrust violations require you to be a monopoly.
People get that? The level of ignorance people, Kyle being the chief among them, are spewing on this subject is comical. nVidia is not legally capable of committing an antitrust violation- Intel/AMD own 100% of the x86 market and 81% of the GPU market. What would be an actual violation is if they say teamed up to try and force nVidia out of a market segment using their monopoly power- like they are actually doing.
If some chain of car dealerships decided they want to market a Camaro as a Lexus none of the companies involved would be OK with it- it simply would not be allowed. Somehow though, nVidia wanting branding to compete against the predatory competition in the GPU space is some huge violation?
It's just an entirely different level of fanboy stupid.
When the kiddies grow up and work in the real world they will realize how shockingly dumb this all is- nVidia was trying to get branding in line with what every other segment in every other industry already has.
As far as pulling stupid BS on the consumers in particular- AMD piggybacking and trying to get sales off of nVidia's vastly superior mind share could certainly be viewed as anti competitive using the hyper ignorant [H] logic, the problem is by themselves they are not a monopoly.
Legally nVidia is entirely within their rights to tell partners they either sell nVidia exclusive parts, or they don't sell nVidia at all. Again, their competition has monopoly status- it wouldn't be remotely close to being in the vicinity of an anti trust violation.
AMD managed to find a member of the press challenged enough to not have a clue about antitrust laws with a big enough mouth to whip the AMD diehard fanboys into a tizzy and nVidia didn't like the PR backlash.
Tams80 - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
"Antitrust violations require you to be a monopoly."No it doesn't.
"nVidia was trying to get branding in line with what every other segment in every other industry already has"
No, they wanted exclusive use of AIBs' gaming brands that those partners have spent years and millions building up. Those brands include products that have nothing to do with Nvidia, AMD, or Intel.
"If some chain of car dealerships decided they want to market a Camaro as a Lexus none of the companies involved would be OK with it- it simply would not be allowed. "
Useless analogies aside; it's more like a dealership comes up with a brand and decides to sell several car manufacturers under that brand. That brand is the dealership's and it is not okay for the car manufacturers to coerce the dealership to only sell their cars under that brand. They can demand that their products aren't sold under that brand, but not that only it can.
BenSkywalker - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
Sherman Act, Clayton Act or the FTC Act- which one are you implying allows antitrust action to be taken against a company that is not a monopoly?I'll give you a hint- none of the above. They are quite explicit in exactly what is required to constitute action in terms of market position and types of actions.
You are way out of your league in this discussion. Go back to amdownzjoo4evah and fantasize with other ignorant fools who take legal advice from someone who doesn't know a thing about the law and almost nothing about technology.
nVidia, using the most favorable to them numbers possible, has 19% of the PC GPU market. Two other companies control the other 81% and they have now teamed up making their graphics effort in marketplace terms function as one.
Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to equate 19% to antitrust actionable? Honest question, I don't often interact with people that have capabilities that limited.
prisonerX - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Antitrust violations do not require you to be a monopoly. They require use dominant market power to reduce competition.Take about ignorant - you're it.
HStewart - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
Monopoly if define from one frame of reference is not a true monopoly, if you look at CPU one could say Intel has monopoly for x86 based processors - but then include cpus in tables and phone, one could save that ARM has monopoly in that environment - yes there is different manufactures of but they are based on same architecture. But x86 or ARM don't have a monopoly in customer markets.In same boat there is different types of GPU's for example on this XPS 15 2in1 it has both Intel and AMD GPU working together for a different purpose. And my Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 has Adreno 530 from Qualcomm - but all 3 are GPU.
One could possibly say AMD has a Monopoly in Console CPU/GPU but one also needs to include the Nintendo also and than what about older versions
All I am stating that in computers in today's world - it is harder to say a single company has monopoly. Also computers has many different components and processors run different parts of systems - For example Apple iMac supposedly use ARM based components to run displays and such.
HStewart - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
II would say as it comes to monopoly there is probably one company that has a Monopoly more than other company if one defines it as allow other manufacture to create hardware products - this would be Apple, but then if you look out of frame of reference, for phone you need to include Android devices and for desktop/laptop include Windows based or Linux based,HStewart - Sunday, May 6, 2018 - link
For the iMac for example have AMD GPU but for a long as time they had NVidia GPU. And even though there current iMACs are Intel based - they were once PowerPC - but Apple would probably not be existence if they kept PowerPC because Windows compatibly.Microsoft has try many times for non x86 based versions of OS, but it hard to get rid of huge software based, This was done with Windows RT, even Windows Pocket PC and a long time Alpha and Mips version of Windows NT, And recently Windows for ARM which will likely failed.
Apple knows that PC industry is important - they want people to believe iPad Pro is PC replacement but in reality it is oversize iPad which is oversize iPhone, just as my Galaxy Tab S3 is oversize Galaxy Phone. Onely that iPads and Tab S3 don't have phone calling,
BenSkywalker - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
Luxury markets are not covered by antitrust laws. The PC has been classified as an essential tool for commerce and as such it is a market that is governed by antitrust laws- Intel and Microsoft are both classified as monopolies.ARM doesn't produce SoCs- they license technology. Now, if Apple were to buy ARM to attempt to stop ARM from licensing to others, then that could, *could*, be an actionable offense due to the ARM platform having a monopoly position(although not ARM itself since it doesn't actually produce chips). Since ARM openly licenses to a variety of competitors, it isn't a valid comparison to the other companies discussed.
Console market is considered a luxury market, antitrust doesn't impact it at all.