is next-gen GPU pricing out of control?
Looking more closely at the RTX 4070 Ti backlash.
https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfo...-next-gen-gpu-pricing-out-of-control#comments
"the market - gamers - have the final say and this is the only factor likely to bring about a rethink on GPU prices. If the value isn't there, the product will not sell and graphics manufacturers will be compelled to cut its margins and offer the card at a discount."
This is true, but the market has shown again and again to be full of FOMO ADHD kiddies* - many of whom have daddy's credit card - who are willing to pay
whatever it takes to get the latest and greatest PC hardware, including giving massive bonuses to scalpers.
Unfortunately this has told the market that they can play the low volume high margin game instead of being more competitive with higher volumes. The rest of us wind up having no choice. Either we join into the stupidity, or we find a new hobby.
I think the issue is that playing games has gone from an activity a person sometimes does, to an
identity. It's no longer "I sometimes enjoy games". Now it is "I
AM a gamer". If your identity depends on having something, if it is
who you are then you can't imagine going without, and you will thus do
whatever it takes to get it, including putting yourself in debt, getting behind on your bills, guilt tripping your wealthy parents into supporting your habit, subsisting on a diet of nothing but store brand Mac'n'Cheese etc. etc.
The mining craze and pandemic shortages combined showed the likes of Nvidia that when push comes to shove consumer will spend more than they would have thought in their wildest dreams on even mid to low end GPU's. Of course they are going to take as much advantage of that as they can. They are a business after all. And a business - at that - in a market where they are by far the market leader in a duopoly where competition has all but broken down, and thus they can do whatever they want.
In another time, this would be a prime example of when one resorts to trust busting, and breaking up corporations because they ahve become too big at the expense of the consumer, but I don't even know how you'd accomplish that with a company like Nvidia. What, half their R&D department does goes one way, and half the other? That makes no sense.
*I know, this sounds pretty hypocritical coming as it does from someone who just bought a 4090, but at least I bided my time, and tried to minimize the over MSRP impact.