The death of AAA gaming...A tale of self-harm.

[RandyT]

I love Nvidia GPUs. But...

For those who may not be paying attention, Nvidia has supposedly released pricing for their 5000 series graphics cards.  As expected, those who were hoping for some sanity to return with regard to the pricing of the next generation cards, were naive to the situation surrounding Nvidia.  What they don't take into consideration is Nvidia's obscene pricing for anything AI capable.  They have essentially priced themselves out of the consumer market by making the AI hardware so costly, that in order to protect that market segment from the use of consumer cards to do the same thing, they need to ensure there are no alternatives.  After all, who is going to pay $20,000 for a dedicated AI processing card, which will never be anything other than that, and will be obsolete (see: ASIC crypto boxes and the glut of Tesla cards available for pennies on the dollar) the moment a more capable and less-costly solution arrives, if it were possible to get the same results with a half-dozen $1000 consumer GPUs.  Especially since those will retain value on the secondary market for the plebs like you and me.

If there wasn't enough reason to detest AI, you can also thank it for the demise of the advancement of AAA gaming.  For whatever reason, AMD has announced that it will no longer pursue the high-end GPU market.  Maybe it's due to the lack of internal expertise in driving the technology, or they may have just realized that it is so costly to produce their designs, again, thanks to Nvidia and AI, and that a GPU lacking the same utility for AI as the competition doesn't have enough value to justify it's pricing requirements.  Regardless, they have turned their attention to the mid-tier and APU offerings, which will essentially turn PC gaming into consoles without the benefits offered by console gaming.  While scalpers, streamers, content creators and rich kids have shown that they don't care about pricing, which has also contributed to these prices, the average consumer has to.  For that reason, AMD will reign into the foreseeable future as the "gamer's GPU" company.  If Nvidia continues to ignore the needs of the PC gaming market in favor of AI, when it falls, I predict that it will fall hard and may not be able to win back the favor of the market it has turned it's back upon.

All of this added to the abysmal economic situations in the west, and the push-back against the injection of so-called "woke" ideologies into games, has resulted in financial hardship and the threat of demise for several AAA studios.  The situation as it is currently would make it seem foolhardy to invest any capital into these companies, as consumers expect new games to not only deliver the experiences they want, but also to be more impressive than older titles.  But few can afford the hardware required to support them, even if they existed in the form they desired.  Fewer customers for the latest and greatest, equates to a smaller market and even higher prices, eg. unsustainable, for those titles.

In a nutshell, I believe that we are currently exiting the era of AAA gaming, thanks to AI and the company which at one time helped to foster it's growth.  Unlike previous gaming crashes, there will still be new games produced by smaller studios.  The tools have become so advanced now that quality 1-developer games are achievable.  But those who limit their gaming to AAA experiences will need to sell a kidney to afford the hardware, and their options are about to become extremely limited.

Anyone disagree?

[pbj]

I bought some really expensive video card awhile back.  It’s hooked up to 1080P monitor and I use that computer to browse eBay and post here.  24GB of ram or some ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  Can I somehow use it to make Cindy Crawford deep fakes? 

[RandyT]

A 24gb VRAM card can comfortably run a lot of different AI-related applications.  Which ones are up to you.  But if the 24gb card in question is an older Titan, then it might not be very quick while doing them.

Which brings me to the next observation about the 5000 line.  The xx70 cards were always the "sweet spot" for gamers, offering good performance and a reasonable price.  However, the 5070 appears to be slated to cost ~$700, with the rumored performance of a 4070 Super or 3090 in most tasks.  The hitch is that $700 will easily get you a gently used RTX 3090 with double the amount of VRAM as that of the 5070.  It's difficult to look at this situation and not see it as Nvidia intentionally hobbling the high-priced mid-tier in order to keep it out of the AI market.  At minimum, the 5070 should have been a 16gb card and the 5080 should be 24gb.

The only real bump in the 5000 series consumer cards is the 5090 with 32gb of VRAM.  But the $2500 projected price tag will be keeping it out of the hands of all but the most avid and wealthy consumers.  Part of me thinks that these are targeted toward Semi-professional and hardcore AI enthusiasts, as well as "back-door" sales to the Chinese government, where the GPU and memory chips are stripped off from consumer cards to be used in their AI server farms.  It's a lot harder to keep track of where consumer goods end up than direct B2B sales.  It's no coincidence that the piles of GPU and VRAM-less 3090 cards being sold on ebay for parts are all coming from China.     

[Xiaou2]

 The true Death of  AAA  gaming... has came in the form of Misandrists taking over the companies, as well as DEI initiatives (Hiring based on Skin Tone, or Gender, rather than Raw Talent and proven good Work History).

 Every story and dialogue is Childish, Trash.
 Every character is an Obnoxious Female Boss-wItch
 Every well known character is Race or Gender Swapped
 Every Female character is modeled to look more Masculine and Ugly
 Every Male character, is made to be more feminine, and or Inferior to the Female Characters

 And then there is the whole "Rainbow Agenda" also being forced onto gamers... Where every character is explicitly Gay.

 I could go on and on... But the fact is... If you want decent games to play... you seek out Indy Studious.
Not Blackrock funded DEI corpos, that are over-ran by Radical Feminists, and Radical Rainbow Mafia Cultists

[Xiaou2]

Adding to that...

 You do realize, that the Real reason why companies are over-pricing hardware... is most likely a combination of
Inflation (that the radicals actually created), Blackrock Losses (Due to DEI), And ECO-Radical pushes.

- Eco Radicals would LOVE to get rid of High End graphic cards.. because they eat up a lot of Power.
 
- Radical Feminists, would also love to get rid of Gaming... because they dont like games, AND... they believe
that Guns in games, is also Bad influence.  Also, they hate Men having fun... and not spending their every waking
minute... slaving away for woman, in some shape or form.

- All major companies, are lead by fellow Radical / Globalists Cultists.  They will continue to push their Agenda's,
and self destruct, as they Double down on their BS.

[RandyT]

Adding to that...

The "that" to which you are adding, I don't disagree with.  I mentioned it, just not in detail.  The thing is, if that is your bag as a gamer, the results of those efforts are available for you.  The problem is that if it's not, and you already paid the exorbitant price of admission, it's not easy to take the loss and just toss it aside.  This has the effect of making the consumer extraordinarily wary about future purchases.  But when it's pervasive, there's nowhere else to go.  The real issue is that the potential market for that material is exceedingly small, which equates to massive losses for the studios when it is produced.  One can easily go down the rabbit-hole to find the "whys and whatfors" but that wasn't my focus.

You do realize, that the Real reason why companies are over-pricing hardware... is most likely a combination of Inflation (that the radicals actually created), Blackrock Losses (Due to DEI), And ECO-Radical pushes.

While I don't doubt SOME of that, I believe that I gave an accurate assessment regarding prices.  Inflation only accounts for 20-25%, but the prices have risen MUCH more and aren't reflecting advances in production technologies or economies of scale.  When Nvidia saw scalpers buy up their product, double the price and people still dumb enough to pay for it, they learned the power that they possess.  When you couple this with the explosion of AI, it creates a perfect storm for grossly overpriced tech.  Just like the Internet bubble of the late 90's, I believe the AI bubble will eventually burst.  Also like the Internet, it will always be with us, for better or worse, but what drives it will ultimately change.  Any technology which requires a dedicated nuclear power plant and investment on the order of the combined GDP of several large countries is not sustainable.   As the AI folks love to tell you, this is the worst the technology will ever get.  Nvidia knows this and are leveraging their position to the max.  They will likely continue to do this until such time that they no longer are able.  What happens to them, as a company, at that point will be reflected by their current actions. 

Right now, what sets them apart is the monopoly on the CUDA infrastructure.  That is going to change over the next year or two, with CUDA compatibility layers currently being developed for both Intel and AMD platforms.  When those become viable alternatives at the lower-end, Nvidia will be kneecapped in those markets, and may find it difficult to retain market share even after lowering it's prices. If at the same time, something comes along in the server market with that capability, with lower barriers to entry and better prospects for sustainability, Nvidia could be decimated.   This, and the fact that their future is tied to a company on a constantly under threat little island in the Pacific, has to have them a bit worried.  Perhaps they are also "feathering the nest" for the harsh times they see as inevitable.