Nvidia has halted its GeForce Partner Program following the negative reaction of the industry. Instead of clarifying the details, it ended the program after two months.
Nvidia GeForce Partner Program Is Anti-competitive?
The program was confirmed in March, and it was quickly regarded as an anti-competitive move. According to reports, GPP was pushing manufacturers to equip their PCs and laptops solely with Nvidia GPUs. Should a manufacturer decide to go with AMD GPUs, which they can if they want to, the devices would have to be sold with a different branding.
In return for being partners, brands get early access to Nvidia's latest innovations and free promotions. As a premier supplier of the company's hardware, they only had to be transparent to the gamers.
Fans saw these and other terms of the program as oppressive, with links being drawn to Intel's past programs that the FTC and the European Commission consequently fined and regulated. However, these are not the whole truth, at least according to Nvidia.
"The rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond its intent," John Teeple, director of Product Marketing at Nvidia, said in a blog post.
"GPP had a simple goal - ensuring that gamers know what they are buying and can make a clear choice."
He clarifies that Nvidia asked its partners through the GPP to brand their products in a clear way. The GPU brand should be transparent to ensure that gamers who want Nvidia tech will get it.
Teeple further states that most partners agreed to this, but while GPP did not change how partners want to make their promise to gamers, they still decided to terminate the program to avoid distractions from their "super exciting work." He did not specify what he described as amazing advances, but one could speculate that Nvidia is brewing something special again for the gaming community.
The industry still sees this as the right move, however. The GPP's anti-competitive nature will only harm the consumers in the end despite Nvidia's insistence that this is for the gamers.
Nvidia Itself Puts Pressure On Manufacturers
GPP, however, only formalizes what Nvidia has been allegedly doing to manufacturers. One brand expressed that the company has been pushing its products over AMD's behind the scenes. With GPP gone, there is no telling whether Nvidia will also change its approach to manufacturers.
If Nvidia is indeed doing something shady in its business dealings, the FTC and the EC might be brought into this mess. GPP already gained their attention. Although an investigation is yet to launch, the end of the program might still make these regulatory boards want to look at the company's practices.
