On the upside, the evaporation of availability for high-end consumer hardware might lead to a renaissance in more reasonable hardware requirements for software. There's a lot of stuff we managed to do 20 or 30 years ago without anywhere near as much overhead. The indie gaming market already shows there's plenty of room for companies to work with more modest overhead.
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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That's a fair point. I feel that PC gaming was in a peak of consumerism with ridiculous prices and never ending "upgrades" so it'll be interesting to see if anything changes. I hope it does and some of that knowledge/skill and enthusiasm for optimisation comes back.
A certain amount of this seems to be happening anyway just because the culture at AAA studios is so inimical to gaming in general. Looking at a game like Peak, I don't see any indication that the devs went out of their way to reduce hardware requirements, but it's less intensive than major releases anyway. Companies not having the resources to spend years working on super detailed massive environments may end up working in their favor.
Honestly, I think something like Peak ends up feeling more intentional and well executed than something like Cyberpunk 2077. Peak's jank feels like it's just part of how the game is supposed to be, whereas Cyberpunk they put so much effort into some aspects that it's weird and jarring when you run into those things that break verisimilitude. But if Cyberpunk looked like it was designed by an indie dev with good enough but not state of the art graphics? I probably wouldn't notice some of the issues as much. Also I feel like there wouldn't be as much corporate involvement leading to the kind of hand-holding that shows up in Phantom Liberty.
This is headed toward devolving into me complaining about feeling like I'm not in half the scenes that revolve around Idris Elba rather than V, but you get the point!
I love your comment not only because it makes a lot of sense, but also because it taught me the words "inimical" and "verisimilitude." Thank you.
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Very related, you should check out Cairn.
Isn’t Microsoft stabbing itself in the foot? 11 is so bad it’s bogging down regular machines available before this nonsense
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Imagine if the bubble pops and simply all these companies go bankrupt (because the shares are all tied by these mega deals), will there be ANY computing means available?
If shares drop enough, another company with cash on hand buys them.
Shares aren't revenue. The bubble pops, investors lose money, companies go back to selling PC components.
The problem is that the current production is for stuff that can't really be used as consumer equipment.
If enough of the world's component production capacity is dedicated to AI specific components, then when the bubble pops there won't be anything to sell to consumers for months which could cause the manufacturers to go under.
Yeah, but the odds of them just being allowed to fail like that are basically nil.
They'll retool and start making what's profitable.
That takes time and money, though.
Well I bet they have both of these.
Not if they've bet the farm on income from AI hardware sales.
The agreements being made aren't for existing stock; they're for the total future production capacity. If the manufacturer produces a shit ton of AI hardware and the bubble pops, they're left with unusable inventory and nothing left to put on shelves. It's a fundamental flaw in JIT manufacturing.
This isn't excusing anything. The manufacturers are being extremely short sighted to the point of negligence and it's probably going to backfire on them. But if they go down it'll greatly impact consumer hardware production, likely for years.
Except by the time they do that there are already new Chinese competitors selling those components to their old customers.
Chinese RAM is already out and being tested. How long before they have viable products in the marketplace? Especially considering that they aren't really competing with anyone at the moment. Do you think people are going to suddenly switch back to spending 4x as much for American RAM once they are already happy with using this new shit?
How long before its processors and video cards?
You don't get customers back after you exit an industry unless you are offering a competitive price or something that no one else is offering.
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Most of its going to AI chips, it wont be useful for anything but AI.
Come on, you know damn well that if the bubble pops, the global taxpayers will be bailing them and the rest of the affected companies out with direct payments just like the last global crash caused by corporations.
Executive bonuses and buy backs for corporations and austerity for the working man who just wants to play a video game is always the plan.
"To big to fail" just like US automakers and banks.
The US government is bullshit.
I will be glad it's just the US taxpayers that will pay for this mess this time if that is the case. You make this mess, you pay for it. Maybe you could have voted for someone that would regulate the markets a bit better.
"Too big to fail" translates to "we can't have this fail" so we will bail them out when it starts to.
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Gonna be a rough few years for PC gaming. Or any gaming, for that matter.
But hey, at least we'll keep killing jobs and the AI cat videos will continue to flow
Most of the games I play are old enough to drink.
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AMD, you were the chosen one!
Come on, they never were. They're just another company with no ethics other "make all the money, consumers be damned" and always have been.
Whales are always the most dangerous customer for a company to have. Because once a customer becomes a whale, they can dictate terms under threat of leaving. Or they can create massive secondary damage by their own failing.
Which is why I strongly suspect that many companies will become bankrupt once this AI bubble bursts - and not small ones, either. No, I fully expect nVidia to go into full Chapter 11 and lose 90+% of its value, requiring trillions in bailout in order to “save”.
Anyone who knows anything about boom-bust cycles will be escaping this bubble like rats from a ship.
There’s really no way to escape the bubble pop. Not for us normal people anyway.
Normal people can somewhat cushion themselves from any severe crash.
Debt itself is not the problem. Lots of debt is actually fine - inflationary effects can and will whittle that debt away, assuming you are still servicing it.
No, the real issue comes down to single-family homes on arable land. If your home is debt-free and completely paid off, there is no legal way to take that away from you, and the land it sits on can allow you to grow food for yourself and even sell a little on the side. While a severe economic crash will be painful for most anyone not of the Parasite Class, those who have debt-free arable land have a chance to ride out that crash better than most.
Granted, the devil is in the details, but in broad strokes this is a truism. The difference is between virtual or physical assets that depend on appreciation, and those who can work for you.
there is no legal way to take that away from you
Hate to burst your bubble here, but there are two major ways to take people's paid-off homes that I can think of just off the top of my head.
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Unpaid property taxes can force a foreclosure
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In all US states except Florida your home can be forced to be sold in order to satisfy a debt (like medical debt for example)
There are other ways you can lose your paid-off home as well:
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It is destroyed in a natural disaster in a place where it is difficult or impossible to get insurnace (Florida/California etc) and you can't afford to rebuild
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You need expensive end-of-life care and you have to sell your home to pay for that
I'm sure there are a few others
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Nvidia will likely lose a huge chunk of their share price, but I don't see them going bankrupt because selling GPUs is still so profitable. If they can't sell to AI companies there are plenty of other people lining up to buy them.
Don't do this to us! AMD was our last hope!
AMD, You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the cryptominers, not join them! Bring balance to the video card market, not leave it in darkness!
Saving me the legwork to not have to figure out which company is dead to me for treating its regular consumers like trash. I hope every one of these companies crash and burn in spectacular fashion. Never forget
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Oh no baby what is you doing
They don't want us to own our own hardware. We already don't own (most) of our software or operating systems, even.
This is lemmy, most of us use Linux or TempleOS.
Is there a Lemmy client for TempleOS??
No, but you could probably port Firefox to Holy C.
I have tried TempleOS, its a wild interface that's for sure. One guy building a brand new OS is amazing. Imagine if he'd had good medicine or treatment that kept him sane, probably could have done a ton of amazing things
Gaming with Linux man. Just take the plunge now before AI consumes your rig completely.
Dislike. But I guess I can't blame them for letting someone else hold the bag.
Honestly, if the AI craze hadn't bought off all the basic components needed for consumer PC builds, I'd probably object, but as it is, the market for consumers is being so starved that they could not survive on sales to them alone.
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