AI is like a sledgehammer to this walnut of a problem. This is supposed to sound badass or something, but in tech parlance this is literal insanity. Nothing about computers should be about endlessly repeating things hoping for better results. This is the opposite of technology. DLSS sucks anyway, who’s it for? Content creators have to deal with encoding, that wipe any of that detail out, and only paid youtubers seem to mention it in passing.
I think console gaming hit the top of the curve years ago. Sure profits are bigger numbers, but inflation has halved the spending power of a dollar and it’s really hard to tell what’s worth more anymore. With that kind of uncertainty, it’s hard to declare what we’re experiencing now as surprising. They have had consoles on life support for at least 20 years now. Originally you needed the console, game, and a data hookup ( phone line) at most. Now you have to buy the 3rd revision of the console, have the gold subscription, make sure you’re buying the remastered version of the game you want, have an account with the publisher, ads the whole way, do i need to go on? It’s crazy we don’t stop and look at where we have gotten. Instead we’re like, but what if we added AI to this mix, that will fix it! And the cycle continues.
Meanwhile; Valve is literally drowning in money - they have to run sales so the inflow is slower - to clear away all the money. You don’t even need a PC anymore to play. Their 300$ handheld is as powerful as a 700$ rip-off laptop from what used to be a trustworthy brand. We may live in a capitalist genocidist technological hellscape, but at least Valve never broke. I’m actually happy HL3 never came out.
What about Microsoft isn’t a hollowed shell at this point? Maybe letting go of the gamers will let them find out a new way to make money.
A lot of games released today ‘feel’ like games that came out 20 years ago, there are exceptions and I’m including them too. Most of the growth came in graphics and visuals. People would buy any game if it looked cool. Now we’re on the diminished returns side of things, and investors are trying to maintain the charade. They’re pushing out half-baked products, and selling out. Leaving old heads and new heads with the bag of expensive but useless products. Think SLI on steroids.