The only good side is that people are gonna replace their machines less often and that developpers might look at making games playable on less powerful hardware.
The gamers who are really in trouble are the ones without a PC, a console or whatever yet. Or the ones with hardware on the verge of failing…
I think it can have benefits for the gaming industry in a way.
In such difficult times, people are still getting rid of perfectly working PC because these don’t have the requirements for Windows 11.
My company gets us a new iPhone every 3 years when we could keep them for way longer.
All of this can be good for Linux and optimisation, even if the situation is clearly not ideal.
developpers might look at making games playable on less powerful hardware
Yes, please let this lead to devs focusing on efficiency again. I don’t need real time physics simulations and “lifelike” facial animations that still haven’t found a way out of the uncanny valley after like two decades.
I want snappy load times, download and install sizes in the tens of gigabytes, not hundreds, consistent frame rates even when there’s a lot going on on the screen. I have more VRAM than God, yet I still get stuttering in some games on high graphics settings. It’s pathetic.
The main argument against the idea that the steep price increases in PC consumer hardware will lead to a Future of “everything runs on the cloud” and “the end of personal computing” is that the makers of software that can’t run on the cloud and remain decent (most notably game makers, as proven by the totally failure of things like Stadia) will just target their software the the hardware that’s expected that people will have in 2 - 5 times, which as far as we can tell is “the same hardware as people have now” because only a small fraction of gamers can afford to upgrade.
If people can’t afford upgrading their PCs, software makers can’t afford to demand upgraded computers.
I would even say that the trend towards that predates this shit - in the last decade or so it’s pretty much only AAA games who have been pushing the envelope in terms of hardware whilst increasingly Indie games are targetting lower end hardware.
That’s also good for Linux because, lo-and-behold, Microsoft is one of those software makers who with spectacularly bad timming just put out a main product that demands upgraded computers exactly when it’s way harder for people to afford upgrading their computers.
The only good side is that people are gonna replace their machines less often and that developpers might look at making games playable on less powerful hardware.
The gamers who are really in trouble are the ones without a PC, a console or whatever yet. Or the ones with hardware on the verge of failing…
I think it can have benefits for the gaming industry in a way.
In such difficult times, people are still getting rid of perfectly working PC because these don’t have the requirements for Windows 11.
My company gets us a new iPhone every 3 years when we could keep them for way longer.
All of this can be good for Linux and optimisation, even if the situation is clearly not ideal.
Yes, please let this lead to devs focusing on efficiency again. I don’t need real time physics simulations and “lifelike” facial animations that still haven’t found a way out of the uncanny valley after like two decades.
I want snappy load times, download and install sizes in the tens of gigabytes, not hundreds, consistent frame rates even when there’s a lot going on on the screen. I have more VRAM than God, yet I still get stuttering in some games on high graphics settings. It’s pathetic.
The main argument against the idea that the steep price increases in PC consumer hardware will lead to a Future of “everything runs on the cloud” and “the end of personal computing” is that the makers of software that can’t run on the cloud and remain decent (most notably game makers, as proven by the totally failure of things like Stadia) will just target their software the the hardware that’s expected that people will have in 2 - 5 times, which as far as we can tell is “the same hardware as people have now” because only a small fraction of gamers can afford to upgrade.
If people can’t afford upgrading their PCs, software makers can’t afford to demand upgraded computers.
I would even say that the trend towards that predates this shit - in the last decade or so it’s pretty much only AAA games who have been pushing the envelope in terms of hardware whilst increasingly Indie games are targetting lower end hardware.
That’s also good for Linux because, lo-and-behold, Microsoft is one of those software makers who with spectacularly bad timming just put out a main product that demands upgraded computers exactly when it’s way harder for people to afford upgrading their computers.