What's the deal with consoles?

[Doug_Dangger]

8 minutes ago, tikker said:

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.

Your calendar is the least thing they're interested in.  Your phone's location tells a lot about you.  Your internet behavior says a lot about you.  You give out more information (whether its voluntary or not) by using your smartphone than you would playing video games.

[tikker]

17 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

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

Manufacturer's keep getting shit for pricing their stuff to high, yet when scalpers pop up we suddenly have no choice but to buy from them? I presume you haven't been living under a rock the last year and are aware the entire world is pretty much in chaos.

 

Regarding scalpers the answer is to vote with your wallet. If you don't buy at insane prices, they can't sell at insane prices and cost can hopefully slowly drop down to normal levels. Scalpers thrive, because people are desperate enough to pay $2000 for a $500 GPU.

10 minutes ago, Doug_Dangger said:

Your calendar is the least thing they're interested in.  Your phone's location tells a lot about you.  Your internet behavior says a lot about you.  You give out more information (whether its voluntary or not) by using your smartphone than you would playing video games.

Your point being? They already know your location and browsing habits, might as well give them full control over your gaming hardware? Not exactly an enticing argument there. Most of us know they track our everywhere and everything. Our information is the cost for the services we use and our convenience is worth more to us than hiding our location from Google.

 

Only recently people have started to truly realise how ridiculous it is that (for argument's sake) your RGB lighting control app needs access to your microphone, camera and phone contacts.

[Ertman]

14 hours ago, Doug_Dangger said:

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.

I am  not sure you are being a devils advocate here, or you truly believe that everyone should accept a great loss of privacy and more to the point, a greater hassle to just play games.

14 hours 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.

Just like it killed game piracy right? The trade-off isnt worth it the majority of people out there.

[OrdinaryPhil]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:56 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?

Scalpers and Miners are only a tiny portion of the problem. I'm not saying they don't exist, but cryptocurrency is still largely a joke. You hear the odd tale of people striking gold with it, but those are extreme fringe cases.

The primary problem is simply a lack of supply. There are only a tiny handful of fabrication facilities in the world that actually produce CPUs/GPUs... Samsung and TSMC are basically all there is in the GPU market, and all of AMD's CPUs are fabricated by TSMC. Intel was the last holdout - making some of their chips in Malaysia, and even some of them in the USA, but now they are also having TSMC fabricate for them instead.

This means that functionally 100% of the world's CPUs/GPUs are being made by a pair of companies in China.

I don't want to get into a discussion about Wuhan or the freak-show that was 2020 - but the important point is that China basically shut down. And is still largely shut down. Production has nearly halted and the number of CPUs/GPUs being produced is so insignificant that they are being drip fed to other companies. Microsoft needs both AMD CPUs & GPUs for the XBSX, and Sony needs the same things for the PS5. Nvidia and AMD both need GPUs so they can sell them to board partners like ASUS, or Gigabyte, or any of the many other card manufacturers.

Most developed countries are looking at solutions - Trump ordered an evaluation of the electronics supply chain before he left office, and Biden seems to be continuing that effort - the result will probably be tax breaks for companies that move their manufacturing state-side so that the US tech industry doesn't crash every time someone in Wuhan drops a beaker.

Germany, France, the UK, and other countries are also looking at solutions - However, Intel, AMD, & Nvidia are all US-based companies, so the rest of world has to wait for the US get their act together first. It's a crap situation, and it will be a LONG time before we see prices drop and supply increase. Until the actual fabrication of these chips moves away from China, things are just going to get worse - and creating the kind of facilities that can meet this demand is a massive endeavor. Assuming the best-case scenario - it will take 8 months to build a new production facility in the US, and several more months for them to spool up production. We will be well into 2022 before we will even have a roadmap. If those state-side facilities can produce enough chips to meet the global demand, we MIGHT see prices start to drop in 2023... maybe.