[salawat]

They can't actually stop them can they? Right of first sale.

Or is there some custom in the supply chain by which these firms waive that right for priority in sourcing? In which case, this sounds like an unethical buisness practice solely intended to create market inefficiencies...

Or is there something else to it?

[stu2b50]

They can stop selling GPUs to these OEMs or just deprioritize their contracts as a less extreme option.

[smichel17]

They can stop selling to them.

[salawat]

>There's a 0% chance that Nvidia would allow them resell graphics cards.

There is a difference between unilateral refusal to sell, and selling on condition of non resale. As far as I am aware, the practice of conditional sale like that isn't actually backed by any legal teeth outside the realm of a contract. Once you buy the thing, it is yours. Now the contract could cover the primacy of sourcing, but not the item itself, which would have the same badic effect I suppose.

Believe it or not, "we just won't sell to them" is a surefire way to stir up trouble, because then people start asking pesky questions like "why?", and if the answer given isn't satisfactory, leads to going about and collecting data; turning it into a public interest sort of thing. There is no way that blacklisting sales without a darn good reason is ever a good thing.

[yuliyp]

> Believe it or not, "we just won't sell to them" is a surefire way to stir up trouble

Companies are free to negotiate terms (prices, delivery guarantees, priorities, etc.) for selling things how they like, generally. If it's in their best interest to not sell to someone, or to charge them higher rates / offer fewer discounts, that's what they'll do.

[salawat]

Never said that wasn't the case. What I said was that making that choice has a tendency to get people talking, and people talking effects the brand. Especially if reprters for whatever reason turn it into a public interest story.

[unishark]

They're effectively giving them a price below the going market rate though, and they can choose to raise that price any time. It would be more messed up for the govt to step in and insist they need to continue selling at their arbitrary MSRP well below the resale value, though I suppose anything is possible.

[belltaco]

Yeah, no. It'd be laughed out of the court because Nvidia's reputation and brand among gamers would get hurt because of the short supply to them and if Nvidia selling to PC OEMs who are selling the cards at a huge markup or to miners. Thus, Nvidia has both the breach of contract plus public interest on their side.