Update 5/9/08: Since publishing this story, we've spoken further with both Nvidia and Ubisoft about some of the issues involved. Nvidia spokesman Ken Brown told us unequivocally that "no money changed hands" as a result of Ubisoft joining Nvidia's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" program, because that program is entirely a co-marketing arrangement. As part of this program, Nvidia may promote Assassin's Creed for Ubisoft in various ways (including magazine advertising) and may offer engineering resources and development assistance. But, Brown said, the value for Ubisoft comes solely from such activities.
Brown further emphasized that Nvidia's "TWIMTBP" program has done many good things for PC gaming, helping developers improve image quality, compatibility, performance, and visibility for their games—an assertion that's tough to dispute, we must admit.
Brown also said Nvidia exerted no influence whatsoever on Ubisoft or the development team with regard to the DirectX 10.1 code path.
Ubisoft spokesman Michael Beadle confirmed to us that Ubisoft's participation in TWIMTBP was strictly a co-marketing deal, and that Nvidia did not pay Ubisoft any money as a result of the deal. He seconded Brown's statement that Nvidia did not influence the decision to remove DirectX 10.1 support from the first patch for Assassin's Creed. Beadle said the decision was made strictly by the game's development team.
Still up in the air is the question of whether Ubisoft will restore DX10.1 support to Assassin's Creed in a future patch. Based on what we've heard so far, I'd say that's not likely to happen. Ubisoft maintains no final decision has been made. Beadle made the further point that users of DirectX 10.1 graphics cards may simply want to avoid applying the patch to the game, if they're not encountering any problems with it.
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