ATI Pulls HL2 voucher for 9600?

[OWA]

Is this legit or an april fools joke? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Below is being reported by Kyle at Hardocp.

ATI Pulls HL2 Coupons:
Jason Hayes emailed us with information that ATI boxed video cards are showing up with no Half Life 2 coupons any more. We have confirmed with ATI that the 9600 series cards will no longer carry the "freebie." The game will be now be limited to the 9800XT. The boxes are clearly marked as to which cards have them and which cards do not.

[-=DVS=-]

It was said before that vendors have a choice to include vouches for Radeon 9600XT for 10$ or not , some of them chose not to include , its not a scam or anything , i think Radeon9800XT ships with vouches by default.

They probably stoped offering that choice and limited only to high end.Don't think its april 1s joke.

[cthellis]

It's a hefty chunk for the smaller cards, so no doubt most manufacturers will look to strip out that cost as they can. (Though they may include it again when HL2 is actually being released to take advantage of the renewed popularity.)

Some 9600XT's will still come with it, of course. I believe Sapphire has a "Full retail" version which includes it, and I'm sure some (all?) of ATi's own shipped cards should have it... (Is it "free" for them, technically? Hrm... Not sure.)

Basically, the matter has just become more confusing, so you have to pay more attention. Heh...

[OWA]

So, the reason it would be dropped from the 9600 is b/c it's a cheaper card and the voucher is just another added expense they don't need? I guess that makes sense. At first, I couldn't think of a reason why it would be pulled for just one card like that but to save cost is a good reason. I keep forgetting it's not free for them. :)

[cthellis]

Cards at that level rely more on the bulk sales than margin, so $10 per card would really bite deep into that--whereas it's much easier to bear on the high-end cards. Certainly having the vouchers brings in more sales, but depending on what margins they're pulling on the cards, they may end up getting nowhere near the added sales to match the loss of including the vouchers.

It'll probably remain on some of the "full-featured" 9600XT's, and perhaps the 256MB versions, which command a higher price-point already.