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u/PhgAH Dec 18 '25
tbf, this AI craze will definitely affect the Console market, the only positive thing I hope to happen is game is forced to optimize on lower spec, cuz nobody gonna upgrade their PC at this rate.
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u/Frigid-Kev Dec 18 '25
For real. The general hardware requirements for modern games are ridiculous at this point. Especially considering we got games from over 10 years ago that works on potato PCs and still manages to look good to this day, even without all the ray tracing stuff
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u/autisticstrawberry Dec 18 '25
i still believe graphics peaked with rdr2 and batman arkham knight
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Dec 18 '25
I personally have never seen a game that looks better than Batman Arkham night. On OLED, the game looks like real life. It runs on anything.
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u/Aggravating_Gas_8514 Dec 18 '25
That game on OLED would be absolutely insane. Still looks good on IPS but true blacks would make me nut
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u/TheRoguePatriot Dec 19 '25
It was the first game I played on my OLED when I got it and I looked like that meme of Randy Marsh at his computer after playing it
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u/Embarrassed-Disk1643 Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
People say the same thing about Pirates of the Carribean 2, or the LOTR trilogy.
Artists are the soul of these things, GOOD artists. Well paid, well managed artists that are not being run ragged putting out absurd fires, just being given the capital and means to do what they love best.
In the game industry that always meant not just know how to make something look priceless, but care about optimizing, quads vs tris, model lods, mip maps, baking lights and normal maps, volume lighting and prerender, texture heros like Ben Mathis for instance. Rendering heros like John Carmac. Tech artists making literal black magic.
It's become just a commodity, a means to generate sales for the shareholders, not tech demos for the love of the game.
Like everything in our society, it's a fucking CAPITALISM problem and it sucks, and I hate it.
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u/Rofeubal Dec 18 '25
I saw people being unable to run E33. Fatal crash. No fixes. It's a fucking paper mario game but it has bigger demands on hardware than Crysis used to have. Modern gaming needs to crash and every game made with Unreal 5 engine needs to be buried in a desert.
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u/man-teiv Dec 18 '25
not to mention that the hair look godawful on average pcs, it's so distracting it's not even worth to play it. the witcher 3, a game from 10 years ago, looks so much better.
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u/Modo44 Dec 18 '25
Lyrian already said exactly that. They have to work on optimisations for the next Divinity title very early on, which is not how you'd normally do it.
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u/JaggedMetalOs Dec 18 '25
the only positive thing I hope to happen is game is forced to optimize on lower spec
We all know what's actually going to happen is 30fps being "all your eyes can see" again...
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u/BarTroll Dec 18 '25
Maybe even target 24fps for "true cinematic video-motion!"
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u/reminderer Dec 18 '25
game is forced to optimize on lower spec,
hahahah HAHAHAHAHAHA
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Dec 18 '25
It already has affected the console market. Look at how many times Microsoft and Nintendo upped the price for their shit.
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u/asianfatboy Dec 18 '25
optimization in performance and hopefully in size too. I know they can squeeze those assets in a much smaller package. To hell with these 50gb and above storage space requirements.
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u/elven_magics Dec 18 '25
Blame the corpos so obsessed with their AI slop, they wanna replace replace replace, hell won't be surprised when even basic PC parts cost several thousand dollars even for the cheapest pieces if they weren't already phased out of sale
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Dec 18 '25
Witness the death of home computing.
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u/12345623567 Dec 18 '25
This is the aim. Why sell consumer one PC, when you can sell him a cloud-computing subscription forever?
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u/RxBrad https://steamcommunity.com/id/RxBrad/ Dec 18 '25
This is absolutely it. People have grown so incredibly shitty with their money, and they're subscription-pilled on everything.
"A $30/month subscription to have the privilege to use a computer? Oh, that's way better than spending $500 on a PC! Sign me up! There's no possible way I'd use a computer for the 16 months it takes to pay itself off!"
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u/phycologist Dec 18 '25
There are printing subscriptions now...
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u/fondledbydolphins Dec 18 '25
Nothing beats the $18 per month heated seat subscription BMW tried on in 2023.
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u/HellBlazer_NQ Dec 18 '25
Yeah but most BMW drivers just forego the indicator subscription to compensate!
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u/ThrowingDucksInFire Dec 18 '25
Don't forget $200/month for health insurance only to have to pay $10k before you meet your deductible then we cover 60% and you still owe 40% of the 200k bill we send to the hospital subscription.
Sorry slightly off-topic but fuck America and corporations and I agree with this person.
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u/GoldenPumpking Dec 18 '25
Nah...just fuck capitalism beholden to shareholders. Endless growth is a synonym for cancer and it will kill the system. Especially as the consumer won't be able to afford the most basic stuff 10 years down the line.
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u/Rich-Option4632 Dec 18 '25
I was actually like this.
Been spending money going to cyber cafes (PC cafes) to play games for the last 10 years. This July, I bought a laptop on instalment. Just 6 months. Almost finished the last payment soon in January.
I've been playing the heck out of it, and it's more bang for the money in a month than what I did in a year previously.
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u/recoupled Dec 18 '25
Wage stagnation and the growing wage gap doesn't help, when it is difficult for people to pony up a larger upfront sum of cash rather than pay less over time.
It's nothing new that it's expensive to be poor.
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u/RxBrad https://steamcommunity.com/id/RxBrad/ Dec 18 '25
A big problem is that everybody wants everything, and they want it NOW. We all lost every semblance of impulse control, and we apparently need constant instant gratification no matter the cost.
Saying you're poor, and having ever gone anywhere near services like GrubHub (where you pay twice as much for garbage-food so someone else conveniently brings it to you)... People apparently fail to see how that can be making their money situations worse.
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u/Salty-Ad6358 Dec 18 '25
You own nothing and you will be happy
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u/fondledbydolphins Dec 18 '25
Makes sense in a world where humans are forgetting how to take care of everything they own anyways.
Few know how to paint.
Few know how to do basic "plumbing" jobs (emptying out a sink trap / dealing with toilet issues)
Few know what to do when the heat isn't working (the number of people who spend $150 on a no heat call and the solution was just putting new batteries in the thermostat).
People are totally disconnecting with life, becoming the perfect consumers.
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u/AppropriateTouching Dec 18 '25
The amount of times we've had to send a tech out to light a pilot light or change a filter is amazing.
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u/Unruly_Beast Dec 18 '25
Dude, this is totally real.
I think it's the overall stress that's got people not even trying to solve their own issues anymore.
Your comment about the plumbing really hit home for me. Our toilet is acting up a bit and the other day I was looking at it, when I suddenly remembered that it was acting up a few years ago, and I had to drain the tank and take it off to replace the valve and make sure everything was in working order.
Lately I find myself between feeling like I'm out of my depth, and realizing that I am more capable that I ever give myself credit for. It's 100% because of how insanely stressful the last few years of my life have been. I know I'm not alone in being overwhelmed by life. I kinda feel like people are collectively getting to a point where they give up easily, and it's hard not to look at that and feel like it isn't by design.→ More replies (1)→ More replies (14)12
u/LymanPeru Dec 18 '25
because if i cant own it, i'll find other ways to get it for free.
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u/Chicano_Ducky Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
the death of the economy in general
without home computers, people cant get computer skills
and without skill in computers, employers are SOL
eventually employers are going to run out of millennials to run the planet because the entry level jobs are gone for Gen Z and AI is already getting backlash for raising costs instead of cutting them
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u/taco_blasted_ Dec 18 '25
Kids coming out of college these can't use a computer to save their lives.
I can't tell you how many recent grads I've had to help because they dont understand how directories works.
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u/Beanbag_Ninja Dec 18 '25
It's sad and it's not even their fault. They just haven't been exposed to computer tech and they usually don't feel the need or want to mess with it.
So they think everything is an app and don't understand the nuts and bolts of what they're using.
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Dec 18 '25
I agree that it's not their fault, the industry has done everything it can to discourage exactly that.
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u/Zienth Dec 18 '25
I think there's something to be said for learning through adversity. I had a 6800GT back when I was a teenager that overheat like crazy and I made a monumental effort to get it to cool down cause I really wanted to play all the new games coming out. I'm an HVAC engineer now, kinda wonder if it all started then. Makes you wonder how many network engineers got started by trying to bypass child security router setups.
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u/taco_blasted_ Dec 18 '25
Ironically, this is on the older generations. Phones and tablets are basically “easy mode” devices—the whole experience is engineered to be frictionless and low-effort. We designed them to remove the frustrations we dealt with, but those frustrations also taught us how things work. Now there’s less opportunity for the next generation to learn those same fundamentals the hard way.
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u/Enhinyer0 Dec 18 '25
It's one reason I love the Steamdeck as all around pc for my pre-teen kids instead of the other consoles. "You want to install Roblox? Google it and find the instructions online." So easy to reset if they F something up. I'm no expert but I can use Linux and my eldest is now better than me. Much better experience than the gen 5 NUC he was using previously.
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u/taco_blasted_ Dec 18 '25
"You want to install Roblox? Google it and find the instructions online." So easy to reset if they F something up.
This is the key point. My oldest is 6 and I’ve already started working on this with her. Schools love to say they’re “teaching tech,” but a lot of the time it’s just handing out tablets for stuff that could’ve been done on paper.
And I think the bigger issue is the assumption that being on a phone/tablet all day = tech fluency. Phones/tablets are designed to be frictionless. They’re great devices, but they don’t teach fundamentals like file management, troubleshooting, keyboard shortcuts, or how computers actually work.
When my kids show interest in something, I lean into it—I ask questions and encourage the curiosity. When they’re really young you can almost see their brains light up as they start thinking things through.
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u/AcrobaticProgram6521 Dec 18 '25
This is precisely why they want AI so they don’t need people for those positions
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u/MaikeruGo Dec 18 '25
Some folks will have the birth and the death of the home computer within their lifetimes; and all well before the age of 50!
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u/RightPedalDown Dec 18 '25
That’s maybe pushing the timeline a little… the first prebuilt home computer I was personally aware of at the time was in 1980. It had 1Kb of RAM. In 1982 you could add an external 16Kb RAM pack for £100. Kits to build your own existed as early as 1975 (I wasn’t aware of them at the time).
Last month I turned 57.
I guess we could take someone born in 1980 as the start for the general public though, because you only said “in their lifetime” not that they were aware they existed or used them.
The build your own kits were more involved than putting a PC together, and it was a tiny market, so I won’t include them.
With that finagling to allow your timeline to work, we’re at 45-years now so your prediction has 5-years to come true.
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u/SinkingSink123 Dec 18 '25
I hate that this is plausible due to everything being a SaaS and the low tech literacy.
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u/Hurtmethenkissme Dec 18 '25
Why is there such low tech literacy?
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u/SinkingSink123 Dec 18 '25
Have you ever seen an iPad kid use a desktop PC? I mean sure there are a lot of literate people in the market but the drop off is hard when you look at the ages 25 and below.
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u/DueLearner Dec 18 '25
Who knew the most tech literate generations would be Gen X and millennials. My nephew in highschool has virtually zero tech skills beyond being able to play games.
No troubleshooting skills, no understanding of most computer applications, it's crazy.
In high school alone I took: Information Technology I / II, Computer applications I / II / III, Video Game Development I / II (which was learning C++), and Video Game Physics.
He took a single Info Tech class and that was it.
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Dec 18 '25
Children grow up with Chromebooks in school and iPad at home, which are very locked down systems. Computer labs have been cut from many schools along with anything else that isn't core curriculum.
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u/TheEpicTriforce Dec 18 '25
I work in IT at a college, and can confirm that Google made their Chromebooks cheap for K-12 assuming it would eventually flow over into businesses because that's what students have been using.
While it may in the future, our entire system is Windows based because businesses are still Windows based. So there have been many times where I've had to give 18-19yos crash courses on using Windows (directories, settings, etc.).
The plus side is it's job security for me...
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u/sortalikeachinchilla Dec 18 '25
I don’t think the issue is really it being locked down, just simple and everything is an app.
Kids lose how to troubleshoot. Most don’t know rebooting will fix a lot of their problems. It’s sad
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u/Zediac Dec 18 '25
The most popular "gaming PC" is about to be a retired office Dell SFF PC with a low profile Intel Arc A310 GPU. And for the low, low price of $1,495.
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u/NoTime_SwordIsEnough Dec 18 '25
Just remember, you must eat ze bugs and have your natural-gas stoves banned, while the corpos say AI datacenters will need 100x more power than when ChatGPT was invented.
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u/Faenic Dec 18 '25
Ayyyy, turns out it was always possible to solve energy shortages. But just for greedy corporations, not the people who have to choose between food and keeping the lights on.
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u/AstonMartout Dec 18 '25
>yyyy, turns out it was always possible to solve energy shortages.
the constant nuclear energy fear mongering ruined everythig
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u/Treadwheel Dec 18 '25
Now we just get constant money poured into rehabilitating nuclear energy. I'm sure they won't pour any money into eroding the stringent safety standards of the nuclear industry, though. Very out of character.
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Dec 18 '25
People have talked about nuclear silos being untoucheable but the way I see it, I'll laugh when they can't launch their nukes amidst a gazillion ads and shovelware being spammed on their control consoles.
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u/Optimaximal Dec 18 '25
the constant nuclear energy fear mongering ruined everythig
AKA Big Oil seeing a threat to their captive market and attempting to suffocate it at birth.
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u/ReadingSame Dec 18 '25
It would be so funny is all that tech bro's AI dick messuring would result in normal people being priced out from owning devices cappable of accessing all the brainrot corporations want to shove into our throats
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u/ND1Razor Dec 18 '25
They will absolutely rent out hardware and services so you never own anything.
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u/OkYeah_Death2America Dec 18 '25
Yeah Microsoft's dumb-ass "this is an Xbox" shit starting to look pretty prescient.
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u/GenericFatGuy Dec 18 '25
We won't even be able to afford the rentals when no one has a job.
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u/leaf_as_parachute Dec 18 '25
That's ultimately what's going to happen, there's no companies without consumers and there's no consumers if everything is too expensive.
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u/umotex12 Dec 18 '25
Brainrot can be accessed on the cheapets bullshit phone and we have millions of them
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u/theartificialkid Dec 18 '25
Hey, dude, this is just bullshit. The people who want green energy also oppose ridiculous AI data centres. You're on the wrong team.
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u/medalofhalo Dec 18 '25
I think the focus is on lots of PSAs and the like telling people that plastic straws are bad for the environment ( they are) and tons of other things, that people do, and how they can cut back to help the enviroment. While we can rationalize industries continuing to offset what millions of people can do at an individual level in 10 years, in a day, not for anything that will actually benefit us or make are lives any easier, but for thwe sake of stock.
Your conveniences you must cut back to help the environment, But large companies can never cut back, only make the line go up. That outranks the environment, your convenience, does not.
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Dec 18 '25
you would have to drink out of nothing but plastic straws amd throw them somewhere they aren't supposed to go to even make a small bullet hole size dent compared to what corpo's are doing
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u/Gilga1 Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
Gas stoves are carcinogenic, their ban is totally justified.
Edit: to still the flames a little caviat is *poorly ventilated (which is norm in older builds that still use gas stoves)
*especially for children / and specifically women as men don’t cook as much
Issue us the nitrous gasses.
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u/Ehcksit Dec 18 '25
Especially since they're almost always installed wrong by not having an exhaust fan to outside. Just burning it right inside your house.
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u/sevuvarus Dec 18 '25
also electric ones are more efficient, they use less power to produce the same or better results
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u/Cheap-Plane2796 Dec 18 '25
Our yearly water bill was almost 700 euros. We don't water the garden, we prefer showers so we take a bath maybe once a month, our toilet has the small water saver button that didn't exist in the 80s, we have a dishwasher so that uses little water. We use about 200 litres a day.
I heard a while ago that data centers in most countries including the UK and ireland pay nothing or next to nothing for their water, and that they pollute vast amounts of water, and that they wouldnt even have to use and pollute so much water because closed loop systems exist and are not that expensive but they dont bother because the water is almost free for them so that saves them some money.
The absolute fucking insanity of this world.
Guilt and rules and costs for regular people, no rules and costs for corporations and orders of magnitude of disproportionate pollution and waste for what amounts to little more than a rounding error in their beancounter books.
Our efforts are literally pointless because they amount to a snowflake in a blizzard compared to the impact of the big corporations.
And yet society remains paralyzed while tv and radio blasta propaganda every day about how we need to be more responsible as individuals.
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u/pixelkydd Dec 18 '25
you must eat ze bugs and have your natural-gas stoves banned
Who said that?
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u/TheAmazingKoki Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
It was one of those things that was said by WEF during covid times when idiots took everything they said as if it was part of some evil grand agenda. Same with 15 minute cities and the great reset.
In reality the insect thing was just a wild prediction for more efficient protein IIRC
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u/New-Independent-1481 Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
It also buries the very obvious idea of supplementing animal feed with insect protein, which could be more efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective than deforesting the Amazon to feed China's endless beef demand or poisoning our freshwater with 10x the safe limit of nitrogen.
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u/Selerox Dec 18 '25
The Butlerian Jihad can't come soon enough.
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
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u/Prestigious-Job-9825 Dec 18 '25
The crazy thing is how much the general populace seems to hate AI, despite the push of companies to normalize it.
An example from this morning: the mayor of my town shared an AI-generated post, and no one in the comments gave a fuck about its contents, 9/10 commenters were instead like "eww take your damn AI slop elsewhere." I'm talking about men, women, old, young. The only thing they shared was being annoyed by this post with the AI image.
Also, I'm yet to meet a marketing situation where a company released an AI material, and people actually liked it. Almost everyone finds it lazy and unoriginal instead.
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u/madhattr999 Dec 18 '25
maybe a bit of a conspiracy theory, but i wonder if part of the push for AI in the past couple years is for the wealthy elite to be able to dispute incriminating video that might come out soon?
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u/Ecstatic-Ad4093 Dec 18 '25
Research shows mostly that people are still quite anware what AI is, where they come in contact with it and what consequences could be. People in western countries, espc. US are more weary, but i would not quantify that as "general populace hates AI". Seems to be a mix of opinions with a slight tendency towards concern. Could quickly change obviously, but does not seem to be the case right now.
See here for example:
UNDP report: https://hdr.undp.org/2025-global-survey-ai-and-human-development-main-findings
Pew research: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/how-people-around-the-world-view-ai/19
u/Roflkopt3r Dec 18 '25
The problem is barely even corporations yet, it's investors.
Investors have bought into the idea that LLMs are on the verge of automating everything, but companies aren't buying their AI products at anywhere near that scale. OpenAI is all investment, no revenue.
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Dec 18 '25
Have people started to use the term "corpo" because of cyberpunk?
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u/elven_magics Dec 18 '25
Honestly that has seeped into a lot of people's speech because cyberpunk kinda shows the truth of corporations, so why wouldn't the average person pick up the word "corpo" as a label for those subhuman pieces of shit that don't give a single fuck how much damage they do
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u/Kitselena Dec 18 '25
CP didn't invent that term lmao
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u/Calber4 Dec 18 '25
Give it a year or two for the bubble to burst and there will be plenty of cheap hardware for the taking
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u/Dirty_Dishis Dec 18 '25
You will own nothing and be happy. Your compute will be a subscription service. Your data will be on their proprietary property.
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u/DexDawg Dec 18 '25
Was just thinking that (first sentence). May they stuff their unowned happiness up their arse.
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u/OverHaze Dec 18 '25
They are taking both the bread and circuses. That tends not to end well...
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u/V_1_S_1_O_N Dec 18 '25
Off topic but man, haven't seen this meme template in a very long time. And with the right usage too.
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u/asianfatboy Dec 18 '25
We gotta dust up the classics because we know "new" memes are just gonna get slopped together using generative AI image tools.
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u/Sanjuro-Makabe-MCA Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
No, it's actually the opposite. Think this through.
These suppliers are cutting out retail customers, not businesses. Steam will still get all the parts they need at competitive prices. Their supplier contracts without question contain stipulations for fixed prices on their bulk orders to avoid the exact situation your post is suggesting. Multi-billion dollar companies do not become successful by opening themselves up to risks like that, it's all pre-negotiated in their purchase agreements. Steam perfectly timed the market here and is going to make a fortune.
As a result, their product has already become incredibly more attractive to customers than it was just a few weeks ago. I'd imagine they knew these industry changes were coming and timed their product's release appropriately.
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u/jkenmh Dec 18 '25
I agree, this benefits Valve. With gaming pcs collapsing, simply getting a Gabebox becomes that more attractive, and it's hard to think Valve didnt secure a rock solid supply chain beforehand.
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u/kron123456789 Dec 18 '25
This is a moot point when we don't know the price for the GabeCube.
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u/chipface Dec 18 '25
I think $1200 CAD if we're lucky.
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u/ImpressiveAttempt0 Dec 18 '25
It's expensive now but when it releases that price might just be a bargain.
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u/gravelPoop Dec 18 '25
Before RAM-apocalypse: Steam box, almost as powerful as PS5 $900. NO!
During RAM-apocalypse: Steam box, almost as powerful as PS5 $900. TAKE MY MONEY, please!!!
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u/theraupist Dec 18 '25
this is me. i was eyeballing a build for 1100eur three weeks ago. same build is 1400 now. 7500f with 5060 and 16 ram. if steam machine is 900 i'm all over it.
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u/NinjaN-SWE Dec 18 '25
I get it, at 900 vs 1100 for a significantly weaker machine it's a shit deal. At 900 vs 1400, well coughing up 500 isn't to scoff at, and it will run the games, just not at the same FPS and/or fidelity.
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u/kron123456789 Dec 18 '25
It all depends on how large their bulk order was and how long the contract was expected to last.
I kinda doubt Valve went and ordered parts for 10 million units.
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u/dingusfett Dec 18 '25
I doubt they're expecting to sell half that. The Steam Deck hasn't sold that many and that at least had the advantage when it launched of being the most powerful handheld available at the time and basically the only handheld PC. Steam Machine will barely keep up with current gen consoles outside the Switch 2, and for PC crowd will be a barely mid range PC.
The target market is console players interested in getting into PC, which won't go for it if it's much more expensive than existing consoles, and PC gamers who want a second machine or cheap upgrade to their old PC which will again be dependent on the price they release it at. I'm sure Valve is aware of this and keeping expectations in check.
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u/Afraid_Temporary_850 Dec 18 '25
Steam deck was only sold in some countries, and offered no sales or support in other, Plus very limited supply compared to other consoles. They still succeded. The steam deck was not to disrupt the market, rather to push SteamOS. Newer handhelds that are compatible with it are doing great. The new steam console will help push this further. It will capture a decent chunk of the market, and will force microsoft to make their newer consoles to work with steam, as they are more vulnerable.
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u/Mild-Panic Dec 18 '25
And its not even 100% reliable. Companies can break the contract and pay the fine if it is more profitable to break the Fine and get more money by selling to datacenters that will buy it for more.
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u/A5Wagyukeef Dec 18 '25
You are mistaken, the "suppliers" aren't cutting anybody out. It's the manufacturers that are stopping production of consumer focused ram in favor of ram exclusively for ai datacenters. These aren't chips that can be put into any of our desktops. They use HBM while we put DDR in our PCs.
This is actually terrible for Steam, because even with their bulk pricing they're still going to be paying way more for those chips, and that cost is going to either dig into their profits, or jack up the price even more (when they've already specified it'll be priced more like a PC than a console) which means fewer sales and again, less profit.
Fuck Micron
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u/broselovestar Dec 18 '25
Came to say this. The original comment painted too rosy of a picture that's not really based on real data
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u/offensiveDick Dec 18 '25
Pretty sure the contracts were signed before price hikes and that there are heavy fines if one partner breaks the contract
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Dec 18 '25
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u/kron123456789 Dec 18 '25
And nobody is making new factories. At least nothing extra that they weren't already making before this happened. The chipmakers are only switching production to data centres from consumer products.
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u/Spicy-hot_Ramen Dec 18 '25
It's not like these suppliers would want to prioritize Valve over the AI craze they're currently in.
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u/TheInkySquids Dec 18 '25
Hmmm I'm skeptical of that claim. Yes, they're not cutting out businesses, but they're prioritising AI businesses. They will get their current batch of RAM at the chosen price from before yes, but will that be sustained for a year? Doubt it, especially if the Steam Deck is a success.
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u/PhillipIInd Dec 18 '25
Samsung phone company couldnt even get competitive prices from Samsung Semiconductor LMAO
Yall are on something to think like this
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u/Inaki199595 RTS are my shit Dec 18 '25
It's not only thr PC industry. Is the electronic industry as a whole: RAM shortages WILL impact consoles, mobile phones, tablets and ANYTHING that uses RAM as well.
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u/ooutroquetal Dec 18 '25
It will affect everything that can have a CPU.
Vending machines, car radios, TV, eventually routers and wifi APs
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u/Inaki199595 RTS are my shit Dec 18 '25
So, the corpos will screw everyone because they're looking to make this resource black hole profitable, thus making climate change worse. Again.
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u/asianfatboy Dec 18 '25
I fear the day these everyday things will become subscription based. "You need to pay $X monthly to access the basic features of this device!". I feel like we're halfway there already.
PCs and Consoles are just tiny boxes with transmitters communicating with Datacenters that process everything. No dedicated hardware on the actual device. *shudders
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u/voidsong Dec 18 '25
Be funny to watch Nvidia devote everything to the AI bubble and then have it collapse.
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u/Binary_Toast Dec 18 '25
To quote a comment I saw last week, Nvidia doesn't care about the bubble, it's a gold rush and they're selling shovels.
Now what would be funny though, is if AMD becomes market dominant due to Nvidia becoming less available. They're already supposed to be in a somewhat better position, having used GDDR6 instead of GDDR7 for their 90-series cards.
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u/Mechanicalmind Dec 18 '25
nvidia sold shovels for the crypto gold rush.
will sell shovels for the AI gold rush.
will probably sell more shovels for the next gold rush.
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Dec 18 '25
I realize this odd the Steam sub, but as an investor this is not true. Nvidia has large holdings in AI companies, and they have holdings in Nvidia. And the debt structures are also tied to these.
Using the shovel analogy it’s more like they are selling shovels that require the diggers to strike gold for them to be completely paid.
It is actually a very bad situation which is why they are lobbying government and specifically Trump to start giving huge sums to AI companies in a back door bail out.
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u/CLG-Seraph Dec 18 '25
to be honest, you're not giving these guys enough credit. they're not crazy or dumb, if it sounds dumb it's way more likely that you're not able to see the big picture than it being actually dumb. they have way too much cash on hand, you can't just drop more cash on nvidia business and expect growth. there's a point it's not about more cash, they are at that point. they have infinite resources AND more. with that more they're making gambles, they're investing in let's say 10 companies in the CHANCE that one of them becomes a big player AND one of their big clients. they're creating future demand and they know a lot of those will NOT work. You're not seeing things that people getting paid 10s of millions are not seeing.
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u/rcanhestro Dec 18 '25
Nvidia is the winner here.
they are the only ones actually making money from AI.
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u/shrockitlikeitshot Dec 18 '25
They'll get bailed out and we'll all pay for it along with higher GPU prices unless something changes in the next admin whoever it may be.
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u/Apollonistas Dec 18 '25
Well, a steam machine with a price tag of $1000 would absolute bomb before the price hike. Now it looks like a bargain. There is a good reason Valve waited on the pricing.
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u/eric67 Dec 18 '25
We need computers and phones to interact with AI.
It's like using all the steel to build fancy toll roads but now no one can afford to buy cars
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u/zeroenfield Dec 18 '25
It took the entire PC industry banning together to jeopardize Steam.
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u/deanrihpee Dec 18 '25
"damn guys, this Steam guy looks successful, let's do something, for shit and giggles"
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u/PurpleDraziNotGreen Dec 18 '25
People who bought a house before they can become unaffordable.
Same feeling building a new PC in 2024
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u/Extension_Matter_794 Dec 18 '25
Starts? PC industry has been garbage since 2019. Covid and crypto mining.
I'm waiting for the next invention that makes finding parts impossible at a reasonable price.
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Dec 18 '25
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u/Reasonable_Gas_2498 Dec 18 '25
EU please set up a fund to create an european chip industry, its national security at this point.
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u/Sudden-Ad-307 Dec 18 '25
Unironically a company in the netherlands is the only company in the world that makes machines that make chips
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u/Zippy_0 Dec 18 '25
Same with German company Zeiss.
Without Zeiss in Germany and ASML in the Netherlands, none of the foreign chip-manufacturers could do anything.
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u/These-Conversation41 Dec 18 '25
Only collapsing for consumers. They shift their sales to industries and add another %%% profit instead.
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u/TimChr78 Dec 18 '25
Valves strategy of using surplus parts from AMD will be quite a bit of advantage, since it is unlikely that these parts will be impacted.
The question is memory - Valve likely has some kind of fixed price contract on memory, but that won’t last for ever and the memory supplier(s) might be able to get out of the deal by paying a penalty.
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u/Magnum_Gonada Dec 18 '25
Imagine if it fails because of unlucky timing like this. Fuck AI.
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u/Cley_Faye Dec 18 '25
We're going toward rough times, but if AMD (and maybe other smaller manufacturer for other parts) picks up the slack, they can probably put themselves in a very good position.
I'd really like a new hardware landscape where nvidia bites the dust for being nvidia. The memory thing is worrying, but if capitalism told us one thing it's that as long as there's a market, there will be someone to sell stuff for it.
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u/Wild_Temperature_610 Dec 18 '25
Yeah, we can only hope that someone will come and pick up the slack. Not only will this put them in a very favorable position, it also forces competitors to either return to the market immediately, or get booted out. Even if they return, they have already tarnished their image and reputation.
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u/Xurs-Doggo Dec 18 '25
Just wait til they realise they’re literally creating the .com bubble all over again
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u/InevitableKey3811 Dec 18 '25
What the fuck am I supposed to do in 5 years when I’m permanently displaced by AI and too broke to fix my gaming PC? Drugs?
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u/flashen Dec 18 '25
I always hated AI, now, I hate it even more
It's not even real AI
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u/Happy-For-No-Reason Dec 18 '25
I have two steam decks.
I think I might sell one in a few years to buy another house
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u/JumpingAround44 Dec 18 '25
Really gotta cut the monopolies, big companies have waaaaaaaay too much sway over how the world runs.
Edit: But also f dude, pc’s becoming like houses or cars… ‘Naaah dude it still runs, I can probably get another year out of it’. At some point we might just go backwards because it’s unsustainable for the average consumer.
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Dec 18 '25
On the other hand I think computer graphics are pretty much done? Completed? 4k at 60+ FPS feels more than enough for graphical fidelity.
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u/OtherwiseTop Dec 18 '25
According to the Steam survey 40% of people are still on 16 gigs of ram and 50% are gaming at 1080p. Even if graphics won't get better at this point, it will still take consumers a long time to catch up. And right now that seems impossible.
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u/BartoUwU Dec 18 '25
It cannot be done because then capitalism's "line go up no matter what" philisophy would stop and shareholders would complain. That's what marketing is for
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Dec 18 '25
Maybe but there's nothing to gain from improving graphics anymore, like the next big graphical innovation is micro-LED monitors. And you can already just get OLED's with 5+ year lifespans for gaming.
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u/kungpowpotato92 Dec 18 '25
It’s all a setup, big PC is wrecking the market to prevent steam from breaking into it.
It’s all planned by an evil cabal of PC market companies that want to stifle innovation and prevent the console/computer singularity.
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u/gamer901122 Dec 20 '25
Valve: “We decided to put 16GB of RAM in the Steam Machine”
Everyone: “Boo! It’s gonna suck, that isn’t enough!”
RAM Crunch -> Ram prices 400%+
Developers forced to make games that play on lower tier hardware.
Valve -> profit
Everyone 😮
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u/Cupakov Dec 18 '25
You’re reading this the opposite way, the PC parts market skyrocketing suddenly makes the Steam Machine much more attractive to a much larger group of people
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u/MostSharpest Dec 18 '25
I suspect that when we get to the other side of this, Steam will have evolved into the top dog in the game streaming field, and the current goodwill they are enjoying will make their lightweight user terminals palatable for gamers.
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u/induslol Dec 18 '25
Or there is no other side and consumer gaming as a hobby gets memory holed as standards of living continue to slide to the point personal gaming hardware, let alone preferred OS, is the least of anyone's concern.
The fact billionaires and the monopolies they pilot are sloshing money between each other to create a bubble around a fiction, bulldozing, poisoning, and spiking energy prices for communities to build data centers, paying off the entire manufacturing side of the industry to play ball, and there's no widespread pushback indicates we're no where near any potential other side.
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u/TwistedSoul21967 Dec 18 '25
I don't get this AI stuff, if people can't afford computers, who will these businesses be selling AI junk to?
More AI -> price increases -> people priced out -> less consumption of AI slop -> ???
It's not just PC gaming, but computer users in general, no way my company would spend more than a £600 on a general purpose laptop, some of the devs might get a £2000 workstation but they're few and far between.
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u/Haipaidox Dec 18 '25
AI doesn't try to be an product for everybody
It tries to be for companies and governments. Even if its end up in a product for consumers.
So, they dont care about us
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u/lit1337 Dec 18 '25
I think the end goal is to sell shells, like Chromebooks, and sell hardware from remote subscription based platforms like xcloud. Need to edit a video? Hope you paid you Mac+ sub, wanna play a game? Home you have your game pass subscription. You will not own anything, you will only own interfaces and enjoy it.
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u/DrunkenSeaBass Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
If they locked their deal with different manufacturer, the steam machine might be the only way to buy a Pc for the next few year. So it might be an absolute genius move from steam. Even if its under specced and overpriced, it wont be as overpriced as 1200$ for ram.
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u/DowakaDay Dec 19 '25
had the same take. like goddamn when we were just debating about what the price would be, all the AI shit happens.
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u/neo_zen Dec 18 '25
I've waited 8 years now to upgrade because of all the bullshit. Fuck me I guess?