The ending of the year has been fraught with a few tech launches that have left tech enthusiasts wanting. Specifically, it’s left us wanting the product that was being launched, with the four last major launches being rather unarguably disastrous.
Nvidia’s GeForce 3080/90 launch, followed up by the 3070 launch, was considered one of the worst launches possible. AMD, insisting they would do better, ran into the same stock issues with the launch of their Ryzen 5000 series processors.
Afterwards, fans started to get nervous, but AMD was resolute. They insisted that they wouldn’t fall into the same pitfall and stock issues that Nvidia had fallen into.
Credit to them, they managed to surpass Nvidia – just in the wrong direction. Many on social media are considering AMD’s launch to be significantly worse, with many of the retailers never having received stock and a large number of listings being posted already out of stock.
Needless to say, the vast majority of hopefuls weren’t able to grab the card that they’d been looking forward to, leading to a massive amount of frustration amongst the community, especially given the plentiful promises AMD had made.
In the midst of this frustration, AMD’s Frank Azor, Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Marketing for the company, tweeted out the message embedded above. As others battled failing sites and constant “out of stock” messages, one of AMD’s leads found it necessary to brag on his new card.
Many are calling this tone-deaf, to put it lightly. Others are wondering why, when there’s so little stock, the employees of the company responsible for putting it out are buying it up. Still others are annoyed over what they find to be dishonesty.
It’s no secret now that AMD gave out private codes to influences and newsletter subscribers that allowed them to grab a card that had been reserved, and many are assuming that Azor used the same to grab the card that he’s flaunting.
Considering AMD’s website had the cards out of stock before they were even listed (a few minutes late, mind you), enthusiasts are calling foul on Azor. At the very least, considering he’s already caught flack over tweets regarding a “paper launch” moniker for the Ryzen launch, it’s a poor showing.
At this point, most people are wondering when they’re going to be able to get their hands on a new GPU without paying double or triple the price for a scalper. Given that Nvidia and AMD have both completely failed to get the cards into the hands of enthusiasts, it could be months before we’re able to actually grab one.
