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Insider Confirms Sony Ditching PC Ports: "You'll Be Seeing Fewer Single Player Games Arrive on PC." (www.techpowerup.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 14 points 8 months ago* (6 children)

Yeah.

TBH there are too many PC games. It’s overcrowded. Sony has some great studios, but it’s not like the platform will wither because they leave.

But like someone said, I’m more worried Sony thinks PC hardware won’t be viable anymore, and is exiting a dying platform. I know that seems inconceivable now, but a few years AMD/Intel/Nvidia could easily decide higher end gaming hardware is just not worth developing.

It’s already started, seeing AMDs and Intel already cut some GPUs and Nvidia is allegedly pondering the same.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    And the same can't be said for consoles? I mean, not to go all nihilistic or something, but if high end hardware is being threatened then why would Nvidia or AMD or Intel even bother with custom SOCs for consoles too? All of that manufacturing, R&D, and materials can go towards AI data center products.

    Putting aside the current hardware apocalypse happening...

    To play devil's advocate a bit. If I was Sony and I saw my competitor, Microsoft, shoot themselves in the feet so much that they are no longer in the console space then...why wouldn't I capitalize on that and take advantage of being the only home console available? I can release all of my first party stuff on my console only so people have to buy my console.

    Sure some Xbox gamers are going to go PC, but the majority don't want a PC. They want a console they can plug into a TV and press Play on whatever game and it just works. If Microsoft doesn't produce Xbox's anymore, where are they going to go? Nintendo? Lmao. It'll be a PlayStation.

    I think this move is just Sony doubling down on their platform and titles. I for one would advise against buying a console at this point because you are locked down to their ecosystem, their services. On PC I can at least play the games I bought 20 years ago on Steam. I can emulate tens of thousands of retro games. And I can use the controller or peripherals I want to use. I prefer the Xbox controller(well Steam soon enough), and if I went PlayStation then I'd be playing with a controller I simply don't like. On PC I can choose whichever one I want.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    If Microsoft doesn't produce Xbox's anymore, where are they going to go?

    Hopefully Valve gives them a home with the Steam Machine. We're still waiting to hear the price for that though...

    (It is just a computer running Linux, but it's sold as a console.)

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (2 children)

    And the same can’t be said for consoles?

    Console chips are high volume, single SoC, ordered by one reliable customer (Sony), and can make the transition to cloud gaming if they have to. Sony's already experimented with this, actually.

    Discrete PCIe GPUs and "desktop" CPUs, on the other hand, are:

    • Mostly consumed by gaming laptops, which OEMs could very well abandon.

    • And partially go to workstations/gaming desktops.

    But repurposed server chips can serve workstations, while tablets and thin clients can eat the desktop/gaming laptop market from the bottom up, too. The niche that assembles higher end gaming PCs isn't enough to amortize the massive cost of such gaming GPUs by themself (hence AMD and Intel already abanonded their highest end GPU variants).

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    I just don't see how consoles can be "shielded" from the AI onslaught.

    If Nvidia/AMD/Intel are going to abandon certain sectors and product types(discrete GPUs, desktop parts), I don't see how they will be fine with custom SOCs. I don't like "all or nothing" scenarios, but if these higher end chips are going away for desktop, I am assuming it will happen to all consumer sectors as well. So the next consoles would be cloud/streaming consoles only.

    But, I don't believe discrete GPUs and desktop parts are going away.

    The niche that assembles higher end gaming PCs isn’t enough to amortize the massive cost of such gaming GPUs by themself (hence AMD and Intel already abanonded their highest end GPU variants).

    I think you're being quite a bit disingenuous here. AMD hasn't made a "highest end GPU variant" in a literal decade. They've never had a competitor to the Titan cards nor the *90 variants, and with the *80 variant slowly taking over the top-end consumer spec(because the *90 took over the TItan classification), all of this isn't because of AI. It's just AMD lagging behind the entire time. And I love AMD, but they've never been known for highest end.

    And Intel has NEVER made a highest end GPU variant. So not sure where that claim is coming from.

    Also, I genuinely believe a lot of people's perspectives are skewed on all of these aspects. Hardware has gotten more powerful and more efficient, we've gone through a hyper-inflation period, and AI is gobbling everything up, so yeah prices and hardware availability sucks. But a great mid-range build I just spec'd out(9600X, 9060 XT, 1TB nvme, 32GB of DDR5) is around $1400 USD. Just adjusting for inflation, in January 2016 that'd be a little over $1000 USD. Austin Evans has a video(i5-6500, R9 390, 250GB SSD/1TB spinner, 8GB DDR4) from Jan 2016 with a $1000 USD PC build.

    Obviously, and hopefully, a build from 2026 beats a build from 2016. But looking at the pricing and adjusting for inflation and current market conditions, I'd say we aren't doing bad at all in 2026. Yeah, shit's expensive, but I don't think we're at a "doomsday level of high end desktop parts going extinct" situation.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    So the next consoles would be cloud/streaming consoles only.

    They very well could be.

    The hardware is near-identical though, or at least it was for PS Now. So the barrier to re-use game streaming hardware for a physical console is fairly low.

    I think you’re being quite a bit disingenuous here. AMD hasn’t made a “highest end GPU variant” in a literal decade. They’ve never had a competitor to the Titan cards nor the *90 variants, and with the *80 variant slowly taking over the top-end consumer spec(because the *90 took over the TItan classification), all of this isn’t because of AI. It’s just AMD lagging behind the entire time. And I love AMD, but they’ve never been known for highest end. And Intel has NEVER made a highest end GPU variant. So not sure where that claim is coming from.

    It's about silicon size to me. Even if a bit behind Nvidia's mega dies, AMD made "big die" cards consistently, like the 6970, 7970, 290, Fiji, Vega 64, the 6900, 7900 XTX. But the 9000 series is different. The top-end 9070 XT is "only" 356.5 mm2 and 256-bit; a mid-range size. The only recent precedent for that is the RX 480, but those were cheaper and sold alongside higher end GPUs.

    And with Arc Battlemage, Intel allegedly had a bigger die in the works, but canceled it. Presumably because they didn't think it was financially viable.

    You make fair points. I'm probably panicking and being a little dramatic here... Custom SoCs would probably be questionable if regular graphics are.

    But I still don't like the trajectory. It feels like AMD/Intel are struggling to even stay alive in the space, while Nvidia seems to think it's not so important, and I don't like where that goes.

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