Question Nvidia apologizes? Fact or fiction?

[aleader]

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-rtx-3080-apologies/

For real or was this a planned statement?

 

[Hitman928]

Swear I saw something about Zotac selling 20K units just on Amazon alone.

Edit:

ZOTAC received 20,000 orders for GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity through Amazon alone - VideoCardz.com

ZOTAC: Expect weeks of waiting for RTX 3080 The launch of the GeForce RTX 3080 will be remembered as the worst launch of GeForce graphics card in recent history. The non-existent stock has been depleted in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. It was confirmed that scalpers have used bots for...

videocardz.com

Take with grain of salt. Or silo.

Those were preorders and they basically just forgot to put a preorder limit or the algorithm glitched and continued to accept orders after selling through the set limit. I'm guessing they have no where near the supply for that many units of 1 model.

Amazon Germany took preorders for ZOTAC RTX 3080 Trinity. Almost 20 thousand preorders have been submitted, even though the company did not have this many cards for sale.

 

[Hitman928]

I think it's just more because NVidia is cast as the villain these days after being dominant so long. So anything that happens, the narrative tilts toward how it can frame NVidia the villain, as the explanation. We having shortages of everything, almost always blamed on scalpers, or people over-reacting, but in this instance, NVidia is at fault...

BTW, big Q&A from NVidia regarding the sell through and protections going forward:

NVIDIA publishes Q&A regarding GeForce RTX 3080 availability - VideoCardz.com

The company promises to implement more security measures to combat people buying cards using bots. NVIDIA has a statement regarding the RTX 3080 availability NVIDIA will implement CAPTCHA and move its official store to a more secure environment. This is a direct decision made after a fiasco of...

videocardz.com

Shipping the actual GPU to partners in August for a mid September launch seems like not a lot of time to assemble, QA, package, and ship the actual cards to retailers. I would expect at least a 2 - 3 month lead time on this unless they are air freighting everything which is going to be really expensive right now.

We began shipping GPUs to our partners in August, and have been increasing the supply weekly.

If anyone wants to actually try to get a 3080 or just track the supply situation, you can use nowinstock. They use bots to track when items are in stock and you can setup alerts by email or text message. In my experience it's much more reliable and faster than the "notify me" options on the actual store pages for whatever reason.

NVIDIA RTX 3080 In Stock Tracker - NowInStock.net

Looking for NVIDIA RTX 3080 but having no luck? Maybe our FREE NVIDIA RTX 3080 In Stock Tracker can help!

www.nowinstock.net

Edit:

Just to add on, Nvidia rep says they cancelled bot orders on the order of hundreds of orders. So either bots weren't the main issue on launch day, Nvidia didn't cancel the vast majority of bot orders before they were shipped, or supply from the Nvidia store was really low for a global release. Maybe some combination of the three?

While individuals using bots may have shown images of email inboxes filled with confirmed orders, NVIDIA has cancelled hundreds of orders manually before they were able to ship.

 

[eek2121]

NVIDIA can’t detect most bots. Putting a captcha system in place won’t change things much. The larger “resellers” have:

1. Bots that use chrome and are controlled via selenium. These bots mimic human interaction and even go so far as to visit random product pages and add other random items to the cart.
2. Multiple forwarding addresses and payment methods (typically with gift cards or virtual card numbers)
3. The ability to solve captchas via a captcha solving service or AI.

It may cost $25 or so a month for the infrastructure, but since they can basically double their investment, the problem will persist.

NVIDIA could sell cards for MSRP on eBay and that would help with the problem. Ensuring that there is adequate stock, even for the scalpers, would also solve the problem. Imagine a scalper ordering, and receiving, hundreds of cards without availability being affected in the slightest.

 

[Heartbreaker]

NVIDIA could sell cards for MSRP on eBay and that would help with the problem.

Not sure how it makes any difference at all if sells out in 30seconds on Newegg, or on ebay. Also why in heck would NVidia want to train customers to go to ebay?

Ensuring that there is adequate stock...

I am sure they are running production line full tilt already.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Scalping isn’t just on eBay. This is some amazon store I’ve never heard of.

 

[Hitman928]

Scalping isn’t just on eBay. This is some amazon store I’ve never heard of.

Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, etc. all have 3rd party offerings on their websites now. It's a problem because people don't always realize they are buying from a 3rd party vendor a lot of the times and it can result in a lot of negative experiences that they associate with the company who hosts the marketplace, not just the 3rd party seller.

 

[Aikouka]

This is all lip-service. nVidia doesn't give a crap about bots, scalpers or miners. As long as the cards are selling it makes absolutely no different to nVidia where they end up.

I'm not making any moral judgement here, just stating facts.

I don't think Nvidia wants the bad press, but I also think that we all realize that this sort of furor is likely be short lived. Once more people start getting cards, people will stop throwing a fit, and it will just be thought of as "that bad card launch". Given that, I don't think Nvidia cares that much about it. Although, it did seem to be a bit amusing given how much their Twitter account was retweeting actual people showing off that they had snagged a 3080 card. I don't think there's anything nefarious about it, but I guess you could argue that there's a bit of a "See... real people got them!" undertone.

Although, there's a part of me that wonders if Nvidia considers this an interesting and potentially marketable task for them? Keep in mind that Nvidia has a heavy focus on AI, and what if they can turn around to create a strong algorithm for helping to determine automated buyers? I don't see why they wouldn't be able to turn around and sell that to other commercial outfits.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't think Nvidia wants the bad press, but I also think that we all realize that this sort of furor is likely be short lived. Once more people start getting cards, people will stop throwing a fit, and it will just be thought of as "that bad card launch". Given that, I don't think Nvidia cares that much about it. Although, it did seem to be a bit amusing given how much their Twitter account was retweeting actual people showing off that they had snagged a 3080 card. I don't think there's anything nefarious about it, but I guess you could argue that there's a bit of a "See... real people got them!" undertone.

Although, there's a part of me that wonders if Nvidia considers this an interesting and potentially marketable task for them? Keep in mind that Nvidia has a heavy focus on AI, and what if they can turn around to create a strong algorithm for helping to determine automated buyers? I don't see why they wouldn't be able to turn around and sell that to other commercial outfits.

I bet part of it was that their web store crashed and people couldn’t even get in. Also yes, they didn’t want the bad press.