Will the confluence of inflation, AI chip hoarding and rising game production costs, cause a “generation stagnation” over the next decade?

Will these seemingly unavoidable pricing trends stagnate our “game generation” progression rate?

  • Yes. The market cannot sustain this, gen on gen.

    Votes: 25 67.6%
  • No. There will be enough kidneys sold to keep “generation progress” going at normal rate.

    Votes: 6 16.2%
  • Stagnate? It’s worse. The industry will regress or crash entirely with these trends.

    Votes: 6 16.2%

  • Total voters
    37
The crash of the AI bubble can't come soon enough.
At this point, Sony should just delay the PS6 a year or two, to avoid the issues with supply for flash and dram. And maybe even get a smaller, newer process node for the SoC.
 
The crash of the AI bubble can't come soon enough.
At this point, Sony should just delay the PS6 a year or two, to avoid the issues with supply for flash and dram. And maybe even get a smaller, newer process node for the SoC.
If (when?) the AI bubble bursts, imagine the possible fire sale on all the RAM.
 
If (when?) the AI bubble bursts, imagine the possible fire sale on all the RAM.

It has to crash. The only company making real money is Nvidia.
But most companies are pouring billions into a pipe dream.
Most of these companies will go bust, and only a couple will survive and reap the rewards.
It will be the DotCom bubble, all over again.
 
IF the AI bubble dont burst, key components for consoles and PC wont be affordable anymore and we will have to rely in cloud and AI services.
Pretty sure thats their end goal.
 
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Let me put it this way:

If this means that we have to limit ourselves to the same tech and we get better and faster performing games....then I am OK with that.

I wnat more games that run like Doom Dark Ages, Arc Raiders and Nixxes Playstation ports (The Last of Us and Spiderman 2 being exceptions)

For me we have so dramatically reached diminishing returns in terms of graphics, this presents an opportunity to focus more on optimization...

Will that happen? Doubt it.

But dammit I have to see something good happening.
 
We reached the point of stagnation and diminishing returns long ago, like a decade ago.

I don't know what is going to happen with AI but even if it didn't exist, the hardware and manufacturing tech just aren't advancing as fast as it used to.
 
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The sings that this is unsustainable are very clear by this point.

It's very likely that after the bubble bursts the market will be flooded with cheap used card, memory and SSDs by these companies.

Everyone is going to take a very hard hit. The only ones laughing by the end will be Nvidia, Micron and everyone that sells the shovels.

It will be the DotCom bubble, all over again.

Very likely worse considering the numbers.
 
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IF the AI bubble dont burst, key components for consoles and PC wont be affordable anymore and we will have to rely in cloud and AI services.
Pretty sure thats their end goal.
Cloud is not as desirable for companies as you think. Its far more cost effective for you to play a game on YOUR PS5 than running a data center that has to keep native machines, use their power and supply the bandwidth necessary.
 
I absolutely love new tech and amazing graphics, but honestly…I'm happy with where we're at.

If the PS6 gets pushed back, I'm fine with that.

But to answer the question, we've honestly stagnated since the pandemic. It's been brutal on the industry ever since. AI has made it so much worse.

I think we'll be stuck in this limbo for a long time.
 
I think the industry needs a bit of tech stagnation to push more innovation and creativity.

It's crazy to think there are adults now that were too young for the ps2 era and anything before it. but back then it was all about being creative and innovative with what you had since everyone had the same limitations that made it easy for games to look the same. Now days it's too much about the technical aspects to make realistic cutscenes.
 
It has to crash. The only company making real money is Nvidia.
But most companies are pouring billions into a pipe dream.
Most of these companies will go bust, and only a couple will survive and reap the rewards.
It will be the DotCom bubble, all over again.
Amen.
Then Jensen will be out there in a new shiny leather jacket, claiming Nvidia always loved the gamers most of all.
 
The PS5 generation should last twice as long as a normal generation. PS6 should come in 2032. Otherwise we either get a minor spec bump with tons of cross gen games anyway OR a realllllly expensive system to deliver a true generational leap.
 
The crash of the AI bubble can't come soon enough.
At this point, Sony should just delay the PS6 a year or two, to avoid the issues with supply for flash and dram. And maybe even get a smaller, newer process node for the SoC.
Well given we been living in a recession for a good few years already just that they don't want to announce it or make it official, It's become pretty evident that they won't allow it to come crashing down, They will rather the FED print into the hype to keep the system from imploding like what happened in 2019 repo market crisis.

The fact that modern print pokemon cards are selling at the prices they are is a clear sign that something has broken at the money level.

They will not allow the crash to happen.
 
Developers don't even have their pipelines and studios in order to make games for this generation at a reasonable pace, we don't need to new hardware to up the quality bar yet again.

I say we stick with this power level for at least five more years and let the AAA studios get their shit together and learn how to manage their products again.
 
You're already in the eternal gen. Third party pubs aren't going to skip Switch 2. You're looking at another 10 years of roughly the same tech target we're seeing today. Hell, games they intend to release in 2032 are in production today. 6 year dev time would be considered very brief by modern standards. Those PS6 launch titles gotta be damn near content complete as we speak.
 
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While the AI bs driving prices through the roof is irritating, I'm actually not opposed to a few years of devs refining current techniques and improving performance on existing hardware by necessity. We need a period of efficiency gains in game development rather than pushing new frontiers.
 
I hope so.

We've got the hardware, we've got the software, now they need a few years in the oven making them more efficient. Stagnation isn't a bad thing at this point.
 
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