Nvidia might be on to something according to some critics of the graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturer giant, as its new GeForce partnership program has been deduced to be anti-consumer in practice.
An in-depth investigation from one of the tech journalists of HardOCP named Kyle Bennett has revealed interviews with some of the market partners of the said GeForce partnership program. Most of them declined to spill out the details and the consequences of their deal with Nvidia but the select anonymous few who replied to Bennett claimed that Nvidia's scheme had some terms that are "likely illegal" and might even damage consumer choice, likely disrupting the business of Nvidia's GPU competitor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Radeon.
Bennett further explained that based on the reports of Nvidia's business partners who gave their responses to him, the deal was in order to be part of the GeForce Partner Program — manufacturers must have their "gaming brand aligned exclusively with GeForce." This likely meant that the partner vendors would only be able to sell Nvidia GPUs and not AMD ones.
Initially, the partnership program was thought of as a good initiative from Nvidia which even had a goal of serving gamers' needs much better. Nvidia planned this by partnering with aftermarket GPU manufacturers and original equipment (OEM) manufacturers to collaborate in marketing products over social media and at big events.
What makes matters worse for non-partners is that Nvidia is actually offering a big distribution help for its partners and that not signing up with the GeForce program will deny a business a big chunk of funding for marketing. This was again, based on the documents Bennett was presented with.
Still, information from Nvidia itself seems to vary compared with what Bennett unearthed, where the official explanation from the GPU company in question specifically mentioned that the program isn't exclusive. NVIDIA has yet to respond to Bennett's report though and it remains to be seen what the GeForce program really is about.
