Views on Coporate Liability

The latest issue that has really been upsetting me lately is how corporations are no longer taking liability for their mistakes. One of the cases in particular is the new Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX that I purchased recently.

Nvidia recently released their GeForce 8800 series graphics cards, which, most techies know, are some pretty high performance cards. This card was released in the beginning of November, but to date, only has sub-par drivers at best. This card is currently the only card that supports DirectX 10, Microsoft's new version of DX for Windows Vista, however does not even have drivers for the new Microsoft product. While many users are very upset over the lack of drivers for Windows Vista on this card, I feel that the real issue is that there is generally no support for this product at all.

The only publicly available drivers for this card are for Windows XP, and Windows XP Media Center Edition. Even running on Windows XP, using the available drivers, several games still do not function correctly using this new top of the line video card. Personally, I play Final Fantasy XI, and this game supports every Nvidia graphics card over 32MByte, with the exception of the new top of the line 768Meg 8800 GTX. I've been told by Nvidia that this is an issue with the game and it will need to be fixed with a patch. Meanwhile, I've been told by Square-Enix (The maker of FFXI) that this will need to be fixed in a new driver from Nvidia. My question goes to you, the end user, when did companies stop taking liability for their own product, leaving the people who pay these absorbent prices for the latest and greatest in the dark, with no support.

Nvidia states that the reason for the delay on the graphic card drivers is due to extensive testing with their drivers. Why release a product with no support if you are still doing testing? A similar comparison would be buying a new HDTV, but not being able to receive any HD channels because the firmware wasn't installed before you purchased it.

Nvidia then goes one step further with this video card, and releases a very attractive advertising campaign through all of its vendors, and even on their own website stating how this card is required for a good Windows Vista experience score, when in reality, this card will lower any computers score to 1.0.

To sum this up, Nvidia and what seems like more and more corporations out there, are dropping the ball when it comes to the products that they deliver. The end user (consumers) should be able to purchase a product, and believe that it will work with what the product is advertised to support. Some have stated this might fall under "False Advertising", however unfortunately it isn't. They are only legally required to provide 'some kind' of support, and are not in violation of any federal laws at this time. Just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean that they should be able to do it without consideration of their supporters.