Nvidia apologizes for RTX 3080 launch, promises more cards are coming

[nanoguy]

In context: Nvidia says the launch of the GeForce RTX 3080 was "overrun by malicious bots and resellers," so it has issued an apology to gamers and promised to bolster the security of its online store. The company says it is stocking up new cards as fast as it can to get them to "more than 100 million GeForce gamers around the world."

Nvidia launched the GeForce RTX 30 series of graphics cards last week to much fanfare and took the world by surprise with an exceptionally good pricing matrix that gave everyone hope for a substantial upgrade. For instance, the RTX 3070 has a MSRP of $499, despite being more powerful than an RTX 2080 Super that retailed for significantly more than that.

Today, the graphics giant issued a brief apology over the not-so-well-managed launch of the RTX 3080, which has led to it becoming sold out at many places and scalpers immediately offering them up for sale online at outrageous prices, some pushing into five figures territory.

Apparently, the high demand for the new graphics card resulted in a tenfold increase in traffic when compared to the launch of the RTX 2080, and most of the people who had been waiting to get their hands on an RTX 3080 have missed the pre-order window. Nvidia says that it encountered technical issues while processing orders, so it hit pause on notification mails and then failed to deliver them on time for many prospective buyers.

The same traffic spike has been observed by many other retailers, who told Nvidia that they were overwhelmed by a larger demand than they typically see on Black Friday. This further amplified the issues with the availability of the card, but the company claims it has the situation under control now.

To name a few other examples, hardware maker Zotac claims it received over 20,000 orders from Amazon (in Europe) and is now working to fulfill those orders. US-based maker EVGA has also said it's making thousands of graphics cards that will become available in the coming weeks.

Nvidia confirmed reports that some people have used automated bots to grab as many cards as possible, but those orders were never sent out -- at least when it comes to the official store. The company explained that it manually cancelled hundreds of orders made by bots, and has now integrated a CAPTCHA at checkout to prevent further abuse of its online store.

Moreover, Nvidia promises it is pumping out cards as fast as possible and increasing supply targets every week to account for the pent up demand.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/86830-nvidia-apologizes-rtx-3080-launch-promises-more-cards.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I am fortunate I managed to get my 3080 EVGA XC3.
Microcenter came through, but even they only had enough for 30 / 100 people on line.

Best Buy had absolutely nothing but if you'd visited their website prior to launch you'd assumed they would be stocked. A whole lot of people camped out and waited only to go home empty handed.

I never could have imagined the Founders Cards from Nvidia could have been hit by what I would label a "cyberattack" in this manner because I'd have expected them to have captchas, phone verification and other methods to ensure that real people were buying.

Fortunately this did happen and other companies will learn from it for future launches.
Apple for example stopped crowds in response to the fear of terrorism.

I will make a try for the 3090 on Thursday just to see if I can get that as well.

 

[PurpleYoda]

All they had to do is introduce a limit but not per order but per billing address, problem solved.. as for the servers, make launches by territory at a specified time in that territory instead of making their launch at once all over the world.. so hard I know.. if anyone ever thought of that before and implemented it in their launch strategy.. oh wait, Apple does it for years? Really? F..ing morons, every single one of them! As for the Founders Edition specifically, why Sold Out? Why not again Apple way, continue taking orders with updated in real time delivery date so you know you will get your card but say shipped in 3 weeks from now, then 4-6 and so on. Apple does it and it works and everyone is happy and I don’t see them crashing? And they take they money and tou get your order placed with no drama, so why nvidia cannot do the same? What ppl should do now if they do want the FE edition, count this time around the notification email will come? Or visit their website everyday every hour to see when they release more cards? They cannot even say when more will be in stock? Sooo professional....

 

[pcnthuziast]

Welcome to the new norm. There is just way too much stock of 20 series that retailers simply cannot afford to undercut.

 

[lvzx14]

So what happened to all those 3080's from bot orders that they were "supposedly" cancelling lol

 

[jonny888]

All they had to do is introduce a limit but not per order but per billing address, problem solved.. as for the servers, make launches by territory at a specified time in that territory instead of making their launch at once all over the world.. so hard I know.. if anyone ever thought of that before and implemented it in their launch strategy.. oh wait, Apple does it for years? Really? F..ing morons, every single one of them! As for the Founders Edition specifically, why Sold Out? Why not again Apple way, continue taking orders with updated in real time delivery date so you know you will get your card but say shipped in 3 weeks from now, then 4-6 and so on. Apple does it and it works and everyone is happy and I don’t see them crashing? And they take they money and tou get your order placed with no drama, so why nvidia cannot do the same? What ppl should do now if they do want the FE edition, count this time around the notification email will come? Or visit their website everyday every hour to see when they release more cards? They cannot even say when more will be in stock? Sooo professional....

...the high demand for the new graphics card resulted in a tenfold increase in traffic when compared to the launch of the RTX 2080

I doubt even in their wildest dreams they expected to get 10x the initial demand at launch as they have in the past. That's a crazy spike. Sure it's easy in hindsight to say what they could've done differently, but it's really not that surprising that they were caught off guard.

From your tone it sounds like you're one of the people who missed out on getting the card they wanted and are upset. Yeah it sucks, but at least it seems like you won't have to wait for too long of a delay (unless you had a very specific deadline for some reason).

 

[brucek]

Their order process is miserable. I've gotten units in my cart, but never a cart over the finish line. I suspect automation is the only viable path at the moment.

This all may have been cute as a single excitement-building event. As an ongoing frustration, it is not. I really hope a competitor appears with sufficient inventory or a mature, no-fuss order entry process.

 

[NicktheWVAHick]

I thought the global economy was in a pandemic-driven tail-spin and that all the people I see on tv don’t even have enough money to buy a loaf of bread or feed their babies? Where is the money coming from to buy a $1000 video card? Maybe the media is lying.

 

[brucek]

All the people I see on tv...

There's your problem. It is easier to find the unusual in the media than the normal. Search around and you'll find all the palaces and all the poverty you want. Coverage of anything in the middle is much tougher to come by, unless by accident.

 

[Uncle Al]

That's the nice thing about being on a budget; I NEVER get burned by first day offerings going bad because I can't afford them until they are 3-5 years old ...... ahhhhhh, peace of mind ....... LOL

 

[Cycloid Torus]

I do wonder if the heavy bot buying will result in instability in the market - what goes up and come down.

 

[sorten]

I thought the global economy was in a pandemic-driven tail-spin and that all the people I see on tv don’t even have enough money to buy a loaf of bread or feed their babies? Where is the money coming from to buy a $1000 video card? Maybe the media is lying.

It's a $700 (edited) video card.

The US economy is in terrible shape. US Govt debt spending increased by 59% last quarter. But there are still plenty of wealthy people sitting on money, and we're probably only talking about 10K video cards available worldwide at launch.

 

[brucek]

I do wonder if the heavy bot buying will result in instability in the market - what goes up and come down.

A delicious thought, but my guess would be that while bots may be winning the very limited supply available, they still aren't amassing any significant amount relative to total demand.

If the scalpers have any sense they'll realize when the manufacturing spigot is fully open and get out of the game before they are over-exposed.

 

[Xex360]

They should make sure that MSRP is at least on the same level everywhere and not 40% more where buying from the US comes cheaper than buying locally (shipped and taxed).

 

[QuantumPhysics]

All they had to do is introduce a limit but not per order but per billing address, problem solved.. as for the servers, make launches by territory at a specified time in that territory instead of making their launch at once all over the world.. so hard I know.. if anyone ever thought of that before and implemented it in their launch strategy.. oh wait, Apple does it for years? Really? F..ing morons, every single one of them! As for the Founders Edition specifically, why Sold Out? Why not again Apple way, continue taking orders with updated in real time delivery date so you know you will get your card but say shipped in 3 weeks from now, then 4-6 and so on. Apple does it and it works and everyone is happy and I don’t see them crashing? And they take they money and tou get your order placed with no drama, so why nvidia cannot do the same? What ppl should do now if they do want the FE edition, count this time around the notification email will come? Or visit their website everyday every hour to see when they release more cards? They cannot even say when more will be in stock? Sooo professional....

Well, keep in mind: apple is one of the few companies selling a product in such limited numbers that scalping became such an issue that they had the time and practice to implement anti-scalping measures.

With the exception of Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation, we truly haven't seen another device being scalped at the rate of iPhone. The demand was extraordinarily high on each and every single release.

Nvidia, maybe, never had to deal with this before.

 

[texasrattler]

I am fortunate I managed to get my 3080 EVGA XC3.
Microcenter came through, but even they only had enough for 30 / 100 people on line.

Best Buy had absolutely nothing but if you'd visited their website prior to launch you'd assumed they would be stocked. A whole lot of people camped out and waited only to go home empty handed.

I never could have imagined the Founders Cards from Nvidia could have been hit by what I would label a "cyberattack" in this manner because I'd have expected them to have captchas, phone verification and other methods to ensure that real people were buying.

Fortunately this did happen and other companies will learn from it for future launches.
Apple for example stopped crowds in response to the fear of terrorism.

I will make a try for the 3090 on Thursday just to see if I can get that as well.

Best Buy rarely has those in store on launch day. They usually get stuff weeks later. Its been that way for years for them when it comes to things like this.

Maybe a few of their high end stores got some but typically they dont get them in right away. This was also seen with the release of the 20 series n super versions.

 

[Evernessince]

While an undesirable situations, kudos to Nvidia for apologizing and laying out a plan to address the issue. Hopefully we see some results.

EDIT **

I take back my original statement giving kudos to Nvidia due to changes 2 weeks after I made it. Nvidia have continued to allow scalpers to buy up stock (over 2,227 sold in the US alone at massively inflated prices to date) and have stated that availability is to be scarce until 2021.

Nvidia has failed to keep it's word in regards to both stock increasing and scalpers. In fact it seems the exact opposite of what it promised is happening.

 

[Sherwoodnt]

On 2nd thought my 1080ti is holding up just fine for what I do. Kind of got caught up in the new card buzz. Frustrating, but it actually saved me $700 by forcing me to wait.

I’m sure they’ll have this all figured out for the 4000 series. Right....?

 

[cliffordcooley]

I’m sure they’ll have this all figured out for the 4000 series. Right....?

Maybe by then RTX will be more mature. And actually encourage people like myself to move forward.

 

[PEnnn]

And the race to create bots that can deal with CAPTCHA is on......

 

[Darth Shiv]

That's the nice thing about being on a budget; I NEVER get burned by first day offerings going bad because I can't afford them until they are 3-5 years old ...... ahhhhhh, peace of mind ....... LOL

Yep got my popcorn out. Let the seagulls fight!

 

[cliffordcooley]

And the race to create bots that can deal with CAPTCHA is on......

And after two hours of BS, real people finally get in to place orders.

 

[toooooot]

I thought the global economy was in a pandemic-driven tail-spin and that all the people I see on tv don’t even have enough money to buy a loaf of bread or feed their babies? Where is the money coming from to buy a $1000 video card? Maybe the media is lying.

Money is coming from stimulus bill.
Ha ha, jk, I spent my on 2 handguns and ammo...

 

[Gahl1k]

While an undesirable situations, kudos to Nvidia for apologizing and laying out a plan to address the issue. Hopefully we see some results.

Customers: We can't get our hands on your new GPUs! Bots bought them all!
Nvidia: https://tenor.com/view/money-crying-woody-harrelson-gif-6945518

 

[LiveFreeOrFight]

Money is coming from stimulus bill.
Ha ha, jk, I spent my on 2 handguns and ammo...

Actually a lot of the $ spent on unnecessary things very likely was a result of the "stimulus" monopoly money the Fed printed.