Nvidia apologized for the epic mess of the Nvidia RTX 3080 launch last week, and in particular how bots attacked store pages to buy units before real people could.
In a forum post, Nvidia said the company saw “unprecedented demand” for the new RTX 3080 from retailers around the world, as well as from Nvidia’s own store. The company clarified that it planned to launch its own store at 6 a.m. on launch day, but the page was immediately “inundated with traffic” and ran into problems before Nvidia finally got it running again.
One of the problems was related to bad actors. In particular, Nvidia acknowledged that bots and resellers were rushing to the Nvidia store to buy the cards, and the company is trying to fix this problem. “We are doing everything humanly possible, including manual order review, to get these cards in the hands of legitimate customers,” the company said.
If you couldn’t get a new 3080 card right away, Nvidia said it is working with its partners to ship new units “every day” to stores. “We apologize to our customers for the experience this morning,” Nvidia said on the day of the 3080 launch.
Nvidia’s newer, more powerful graphics cards weren’t the only new tech to struggle on its first day of sale. Retailers began accepting pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 immediately after the company’s price / release date event, and they quickly sold out almost everywhere. Sony also apologized for the situation and promised that more stock will be available before the console’s launch in November.
The next big piece of gaming tech to come out soon is Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox line. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will be available to pre-order on September 22, and you can check out GameSpot’s Xbox Series X / S pre-order guide to find out everything you need to know.
