Nvidia created somewhat of a stir on the Internet when it announced on March 31 the GeForce GTX G-Assist, a USB thumb drive in the shape of a GeForce GTX graphics card that was supposedly "packed with deep learning algorithms" to boost gaming performance. It was an April Fool's gag, but to Nvidia's surprise, there was demand for a such a product. Well, for the thumb drive, anyway.
"I don't even care for the features if it's real. I just want the USB stick in GTX design," one of the more popular comments to Nvidia's GeForce GTX G-Assist video reads.
Well, now there really is a GeForce GTX USB thumb drive. It doesn't have any of the fancy algorithms that Nvidia's joked about, but the storage device itself is a real product.
"The comments section of the video was loaded with call outs for Nvidia to make a USB thumb drive for gamers. In fact, the most upvoted/favorited comments demanded a GeForce GTX USB drive that matched the look & feel of their favorite graphics card. We heard the cries and we have delivered," Nvidia said.
Ah, but there's a catch. These USB drives are extremely rare—Nvidia only cranked out a couple thousand of these drives and will be giving them away to press and "influencers" at E3, along with 1,080 registered GeForce Experience members who are opted in to receive communications from Nvidia.
The nifty looking limited edition USB drive holds 64GB of data. If you're not keen on using GeForce Experience and/or opting in to receive communications, there is another way to win one, along with other prizes totaling more than $100,000 in all. Gamers who use the #GameReady and #E3 hashtags to talk about games at E3 can be selected to receive a prize. And subscribers to Nvidia's GeForce YouTube channel who leave a #GameReady comment on any E3 2017 video will be entered to win.
Other items up for grabs include game codes, Astro A40 and A50 headsets, GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, Oculus Rift and Touch VR setups, G-Sync monitors from Acer and Dell, and an iBuyPower Snowblind Battlebox Ultimate PC.
