This not 'ASUS official' - it's just a bit of background info on the machinations of product development to help our fans understand more. We love all our partners equally and wish only the best consumer choice
Having an 'industry standard' is only a first step. It doesn't suddenly make everyone jump onboard unfortunately. Now VESA is onboard though, things will get rolling, but it will not likely be fast.
Also, this doesn't take into account LCD/display companies are already deeply invested in 'more popular' technologies with more extensive market applications: 21:9, touchscreen, 4K, curved displays etc (remember they are not gamers).
Adaptive refresh needs a ASIC display IC physical redesign, not just a firmware update. This means silicon redesign, tape out, manuf, testing, firmware - the lot. AFAIK that's typically 12 months FROM NOW to get it on our hands (but I dont work for IC companies, so I dont know their roadmaps) - let alone 6 more months of product dev work to actually make a retail display. And that's all IF display IC manuf. decided to update for 1.2a, and not just wait for 1.3 (business speak: If company bean counters ask "why would you pay for two updates, when 1.2a rolls into 1.3 anyway?" how do you justify it?)
Not just display ICs, but LCD firmwares and GPU drivers too. AMD will obv support it, Intel has yet to publicly commit to any of it (go ask them), and Nvidia is (so far) backing its own solution as it is also yet to officially comment (again, go talk to them).
I expect Nvidia has been working on GSync for a year+ before they showed it last Nov - remember they use an FPGA not ASIC IC, so time to market is faster, but FPGAs are v.v.expensive. And 9 months after first show we're only now just getting ready to ship hardware. That's the kind of timescales we're looking at. So anyone thinking any display manuf. will magically pop out a display to compete with Gsync this year is mistaken: my educated guess is that GSync is your only choice until very likely well into 2015.
Short term:
Until further notice we are committed to GSync and PG278Q, as logically it's the only market ready technology. Given our close working relationship with Nvidia, we're hugely confident that PG278Q will still be the best possible GSync LCD on the market.
Medium term:
ASUS is standards agnostic: Freesync/GSync - we will work with all parties and investigate everything (that's no commitment either way). At the very least, this VESA 1.2a/1.3 will give great consumer choice!
Long term:
Will GSync and Freesync ultimately converge? Who knows. That bridge is ~years away.
I'd love to see a standard adaptive refresh monitor that's GPU agnostic (as we make all AMD/Intel/NV hardware), but that's long long term. If you bought PG278 this year, whatever happens in 'long term' will likely be your replacement!