What's the deal with consoles?

[Doug_Dangger]

I get that gpus are being hoarded by miners and scum bag scalpers.  But nobody is mining with consoles, so what's the deal with them not being available?

 

I'm tired of waiting for a gpu and I may get an XBox Series X and take advantage of their awesome subscription service.  But I can't find the darn console.  Nobody is mining them so what gives?

[RAS_3885]

The underlying issue with all of these products is chip/silicon manufacturing.

 

There are global shortages, which means the small number of fabricators making all the chips can't keep up with demand for all products.

[WaggishOhio383]

A lot of people want them, and they're in short supply. Same as everything else. Just because miners don't want consoles doesn't mean there isn't still a large crowd of people out to get them.

 

I highly recommend not using Xbox Game Pass though. Maybe buy a month when they do a promo deal just to find some games you like. But if you aren't going to take full advantage and play all the games they cycle in and out, you're better off buying the games you want when they go on sale so that you can have them to keep forever, instead of paying monthly to keep access.

[jaslion]

Scalpers are buying them the moment they become available anywhere to then resell them for more. This is normally not an issue shortly after launch of a console except this time there are problems with being able to produce enough chips for the consoles thus resulting in more limited production which would be mostly fine really if it wasn't for scalpers buying out entire countries stock the moment more comes in.

 

If you wanna game now why not just get geforce now if your system can't run games? Sure it's not perfect but far better than nothing.

[ToboRobot]

People are buying them.  (demand) 

Supply is restricted. (supply)

This is the economics for increased prices (scalping) and empty shelves.  Add in logistics delays due to pandemic and the current situation makes sense.

[Jrasero]

On 2/17/2021 at 4:56 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

I get that gpus are being hoarded by miners and scum bag scalpers.  But nobody is mining with consoles, so what's the deal with them not being available?

 

I'm tired of waiting for a gpu and I may get an XBox Series X and take advantage of their awesome subscription service.  But I can't find the darn console.  Nobody is mining them so what gives?

Just huge demand plus COVID.  I will say your not missing much since the XBOX One X has zero exclusives at the moment and it's main selling point is game pass, so basically playing older XBOX games.  PS5 has maybe 3-4 true exclusives and I do think the Dual Sense controller is game changing but only one game takes full advantage of it (Astros Playroom).  

Point being even if you had to wait another 6 months or until we get into Q4, I don't think your missing much of anything 

In order to get my PS5 had to buy a RTX 3070 from Newegg and swapped in locally with a guy from reddit for his PS5 Disc plus cash.  Only reason I got the PS5 is because I am mining full time with my other two rigs until BTC totally crashes or when it gets hot out and I need use AC 

[SteveGrabowski0]

Because all the current gen consoles are pretty ridiculous deals for the money so gamers want them badly. So scalpers want them badly too. This isn't like last gen when XBox One and PS4 were kind of piss-poor low end PC clones, both PS5 versions and XBox Series X have pretty killer hardware for the money. I bought a PS5 since it would cost me $500 just to buy an 8C/16T Zen 2 chip plus board plus RAM and I'd still be underpowered on gpu with my current setup (GTX 1660 Super) and wouldn't have the PCIE-4.0 SSD either. These current gen consoles have pretty high demand for very good reason this time around.

[Ertman]

12 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Because all the current gen consoles are pretty ridiculous deals for the money so gamers want them badly. So scalpers want them badly too. This isn't like last gen when XBox One and PS4 were kind of piss-poor low end PC clones, both PS5 versions and XBox Series X have pretty killer hardware for the money. I bought a PS5 since it would cost me $500 just to buy an 8C/16T Zen 2 chip plus board plus RAM and I'd still be underpowered on gpu with my current setup (GTX 1660 Super) and wouldn't have the PCIE-4.0 SSD either. These current gen consoles have pretty high demand for very good reason this time around.

They PS4 and XboxOne still offered compelling value, at least according to tech channels and news sites. The "value" they offer in terms of affecting sales this time around is way more impacted by low supply of computer components then their actual "value.

 

Also, the low production and scalper thing would be a less of/non-issues if this was in the middle of a product cycle instead of multiple products happening at the same time. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

2 hours ago, Ertman said:

They PS4 and XboxOne still offered compelling value, at least according to tech channels and news sites. The "value" they offer in terms of affecting sales this time around is way more impacted by low supply of computer components then their actual "value.

 

Also, the low production and scalper thing would be a less of/non-issues if this was in the middle of a product cycle instead of multiple products happening at the same time. 

Disagree. In addition to being really nice hardware for the price, PS5 has backwards compatibility with PS4 so right away it has a much better game library than PS4 launched with. In addition, Miles Morales and Demon's Souls are much better launch exclusives than inFAMOUS Second Son, Knack, and Killzone Shadow Fall that PS4 launched with. PS4's game library was pretty crap until Bloodborne in 2015. PS4 in the launch window offered nowhere close to the value PS5 offers in the launch window. It's not just about low production, nearly as many PS5 have been produced as PS4 were in the same launch window. PS5 demand is way higher.

[Kawaii Koneko]

On 2/23/2021 at 1:54 PM, Jrasero said:

Just huge demand plus COVID.  I will say your not missing much since the XBOX One X has zero exclusives at the moment and it's main selling point is game pass, so basically playing older XBOX games.  

Kind of depends how you look at it though. I still consider XBox games that are also on PC to be exclusives since the XBox is the only console you can get them on. I just started the Medium on Series X and it is a pretty interesting game, definitely worth playing.

 

And honestly, yeah, there are a lot of older games on Game Pass but the performance gains you get with the Series X vs last gen is pretty nice. 

[Ertman]

7 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Disagree. In addition to being really nice hardware for the price, PS5 has backwards compatibility with PS4 so right away it has a much better game library than PS4 launched with. In addition, Miles Morales and Demon's Souls are much better launch exclusives than inFAMOUS Second Son, Knack, and Killzone Shadow Fall that PS4 launched with. PS4's game library was pretty crap until Bloodborne in 2015. PS4 in the launch window offered nowhere close to the value PS5 offers in the launch window. It's not just about low production, nearly as many PS5 have been produced as PS4 were in the same launch window. PS5 demand is way higher.

Gaming titles certainly aren't what's causing this level of demand. Also supply is restricted or do you honestly believe that they sell less consoles every generation?

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/25/2021 at 1:21 PM, Ertman said:

They PS4 and XboxOne still offered compelling value, at least according to tech channels and news sites.

they were honestly pretty shit - still a success for sure, but I'd say definitely the weakest gen overall, basically both parties playing it safe, giving even Nintendo breathing room to catch up... I know that sounds like some console warrior bs, but I'm just saying ps4 and Xbox whatever they called it were thorough disappointments, and mostly due how freaking weak the hardware was. 

 

And the games overall weren't that great, again not at least due to how limited and barebones the hardware was. 

 

 

 

 

[SteveGrabowski0]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

they were honestly pretty shit - still a success for sure, but I'd say definitely the weakest gen overall, basically both parties playing it safe, giving even Nintendo breathing room to catch up... I know that sounds like some console warrior bs, but I'm just saying ps4 and Xbox whatever they called it were thorough disappointments, and mostly due how freaking weak the hardware was. 

 

And the games overall weren't that great, again not at least due to how limited and barebones the hardware was. 

Disagree about the games, PS4's library became absolutely stellar in 2017 with the release of games like NieR Automata, Persona 5, Yakuza 0, Nioh, and Horizon Zero Dawn, all of which you couldn't get on XBox and only NieR Automata was available on PC at the time. Unless you just mean the launch lineup, which indeed was terrible. The hardware was crap though because Sony nearly bankrupted themselves with the expensive ass PS3.

[King of Memes]

On 2/17/2021 at 5:07 PM, jaslion said:

Scalpers are buying them the moment they become available anywhere to then resell them for more. This is normally not an issue shortly after launch of a console except this time there are problems with being able to produce enough chips for the consoles thus resulting in more limited production which would be mostly fine really if it wasn't for scalpers buying out entire countries stock the moment more comes in.

 

If you wanna game now why not just get geforce now if your system can't run games? Sure it's not perfect but far better than nothing.

geforce now is restricted to certain countries. Sure, if u live in the right country, thats awesome, but if u dont...

[Doug_Dangger]

It would be nice if they can somehow hardcode the gpus "call home" every few hours when they're on.  If it's not calling home via drivers and Geforece client and getting a code that the owner has to enter via something like TFA from a smart phone, the gpu will brick itself for an hour.

[Sauron]

On 2/17/2021 at 10:56 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

scalpers

 

[jaslion]

20 hours ago, KingofMemes said:

geforce now is restricted to certain countries. Sure, if u live in the right country, thats awesome, but if u dont...

You are in the usa? Ya know the place it works in.

[King of Memes]

22 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You are in the usa? Ya know the place it works in.

it works in the usa. but i used to live in peru and it didnt work there.

[Ertman]

On 3/4/2021 at 11:55 PM, Mark Kaine said:

they were honestly pretty shit - still a success for sure, but I'd say definitely the weakest gen overall, basically both parties playing it safe, giving even Nintendo breathing room to catch up... I know that sounds like some console warrior bs, but I'm just saying ps4 and Xbox whatever they called it were thorough disappointments, and mostly due how freaking weak the hardware was. 

 

And the games overall weren't that great, again not at least due to how limited and barebones the hardware was. 

 

First, you are looking at it in hindsight, where you have greater knowledge about the deficiencies as they were exposed over time. At the time of launch, the consoles offered a compelling price/performance gaming experience at that budget. Weakest Gen overall, probably. I think that was more due to the lull in the market at the time for parts in that price range. Sure there were options but they were costly and they wouldn’t be able to fit it in the cost limitations and it could add additional manufacturing complications. It certainly didn’t help that there is an increasing computational cost for a noticeable visual upgrade, and that developers chose that route instead of performance.

 

I’d also argue that if anything, they didn’t play it safe by going with a more core approach as single threaded workload were the norm at the time. Did it pan out? Yes/No. Yes, in the fact that we see a revision in the OneX with a small bump in clock speeds but a large GPU bump improved gaming substantially. No, because the CPU was still lacking the grunt to calculate some single threaded code quickly. Maybe they should have gone even further and took a bigger risk with a big-little approach where they had 1-2 fast cores and a few lower power ones. Would that have worked out? Who knows.

 

The GPU was acceptable compromise in price/performance in that generation and was necessary to keep costs down, and was a massive upgrade over previous Gen. I am not sure if they had the room in power/price/thermal to really put a better gpu in there at the time.

 

Also, Nintendo didn't get any breathing room from the launch and if anything made their fairly new (a year earlier) console look very

antiquated, causing them to have to go back and rethink their strategy. They did this and now you have the Switch, which still hasn't "caught up" to the previous gen consoles. They benefited from a hefty tech improvement in the mean time  and even then they needed to make compromises to fit an even more restrictive power envelope.

 

The landscape changed  after a couple of years and if MS and Sony had shorter console cycles like Nintendo, and if MS and Sony had launched a console when the switch was launched it would have had in underclocked first Gen Ryzen, 6 core, maybe even 8, and possibly Vega based gpu (or at least double the gpu power to the One/ps4). That would have been an impressive console at the time. This is of course means they would have had to launch the successor to the 360/PS3 a year or two earlier and that comparison would be even less impressive.

[Ertman]

On 3/9/2021 at 8:04 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

It would be nice if they can somehow hardcode the gpus "call home" every few hours when they're on.  If it's not calling home via drivers and Geforece client and getting a code that the owner has to enter via something like TFA from a smart phone, the gpu will brick itself for an hour.

No personal offence intended, but That sounds like a TERRIBLE option.

 

You’d think gamers wouldn’t want more DRM, I gues technically it’s hardware not digital, but they’d be managing it digitally. Sure it’s not Always On, but every couple of hours or it bricks your hardware, that’s extremely aggressive and I am surprised it’s even being suggested.

 

and people thought the Xbox One prelaunch drm strategy was bad.

[tikker]

On 2/17/2021 at 10:56 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

I get that gpus are being hoarded by miners and scum bag scalpers.  But nobody is mining with consoles, so what's the deal with them not being available?

The fact people can't get anything (GPUs, CPUs, consoles, chips for cars) already tells you there is so much more going on than just miners and scalpers.

On 2/17/2021 at 10:56 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

I'm tired of waiting for a gpu and I may get an XBox Series X and take advantage of their awesome subscription service.  But I can't find the darn console.  Nobody is mining them so what gives?

Welcome to the club.

4 hours ago, Ertman said:

No personal offence intended, but That sounds like a TERRIBLE option.

 

You’d think gamers wouldn’t want more DRM, I gues technically it’s hardware not digital, but they’d be managing it digitally. Sure it’s not Always On, but every couple of hours or it bricks your hardware, that’s extremely aggressive and I am surprised it’s even being suggested.

 

and people thought the Xbox One prelaunch drm strategy was bad.

The moment they'll put 2FA or DRM on GPUs they'll tank harder than the biggest tanker in the world. Not being able to play certain games without an internet connection is already bad, but not being able to game at all without internet? Hell no. Next they'll want to know my work and holiday schedule so it doesn't get bricked, because I can't game for a day.

[Doug_Dangger]

7 hours ago, Ertman said:

No personal offence intended, but That sounds like a TERRIBLE option.

 

You’d think gamers wouldn’t want more DRM, I gues technically it’s hardware not digital, but they’d be managing it digitally. Sure it’s not Always On, but every couple of hours or it bricks your hardware, that’s extremely aggressive and I am surprised it’s even being suggested.

 

and people thought the Xbox One prelaunch drm strategy was bad.

It'll certainly stop miners cold.

Since supply will be high, scalpers will go out of business.  Selling gpus at least.

[Doug_Dangger]

2 hours ago, tikker said:

The fact people can't get anything (GPUs, CPUs, consoles, chips for cars) already tells you there is so much more going on than just miners and scalpers.

Welcome to the club.

The moment they'll put 2FA or DRM on GPUs they'll tank harder than the biggest tanker in the world. Not being able to play certain games without an internet connection is already bad, but not being able to game at all without internet? Hell no. Next they'll want to know my work and holiday schedule so it doesn't get bricked, because I can't game for a day.

There are already a number of games that require internet connection for campaign modes.

 

What's wrong with them knowing your work schedule?  You tell them exactly what you are doing day to day with your smartphone.

[tikker]

8 hours ago, Ertman said:

I am surprised it’s even being suggested.

Because some people don't care at all as long as they can get the GPU that they are apparently owed.

 

17 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

It'll certainly stop miners cold.

Since supply will be high, scalpers will go out of business.  Selling gpus at least.

It'll stop more than just miners. Who's to say supply will be high? Sure miners probably contribute quite a bit to the problem, but they aren't the cause of it. Scalpers will just keep scalping until supply becomes overwhelmingly large or enough people have GPUs for it to no longer be worth it.

 

23 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

There are already a number of games that require internet connection for campaign modes.

Yep, I said that in my post and I very much dislike games that decide to do that.

24 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

What's wrong with them knowing your work schedule?  You tell them exactly what you are doing day to day with your smartphone.

Because Nvidia or AMD or Intel or whoever have fuck all to do with my agenda? This is the same fallacy as the "I have nothing to hide" argument regarding online privacy. I'm sure Apple, Google or your favourite calendar do plenty of things with your schedule. That doesn't mean it's ok for them to do so. If something is free then you're the product. I understand that and unfortunately as a society we have also accepted that, but something like this isn't the answer.

[Doug_Dangger]

3 minutes ago, tikker said:

Because some people don't care at all as long as they can get the GPU that they are apparently owed.

 

It'll stop more than just miners. Who's to say supply will be high? Sure miners probably contribute quite a bit to the problem, but they aren't the cause of it. Scalpers will just keep scalping until supply becomes overwhelmingly large or enough people have GPUs for it to no longer be worth it.

 

Yep, I said that in my post and I very much dislike games that decide to do that.

Because Nvidia or AMD or Intel or whoever have fuck all to do with my agenda? This is the same fallacy as the "I have nothing to hide" argument regarding online privacy. I'm sure Apple, Google or your favourite calendar do plenty of things with your schedule. That doesn't mean it's ok for them to do so. If something is free then you're the product. I understand that and unfortunately as a society we have also accepted that, but something like this isn't the answer.

So the answer is to give in to scalpers and pay them $2,000 for a $500 gpu.