Cyril Kowaliski: When the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were announced earlier this year, I saw it as a victory for the PC.
Soon, it seemed, bringing major blockbusters to the PC would be easier than ever. There would be three major gaming platforms—the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, and the Windows PC—and each one would be only a slight twist on the same basic formula. Each one would feature an x86 processor, a DirectX 11 graphics chip, and its own, custom-tailored operating system. How could it get any simpler?
Poor Xbox sales have affected AMD’S bottom line
Oh wow. How surprising! Nvidia overpriced their RTX cards by +100% and AMD instead of offering real competition, decided to join Nvidia in their greedy approach, while not having the same mindshare as Nvidia (sadly) does. The 7900 launch was a marketing disaster. All the reviews were made while the card was not worth the money at all, they lowered the price a bit later on, but not only not enough but also too late and out of "free marketing" window coming along with the new card generation release. Then the geniuses at AMD axed the high-end SKUs with increased cache etc, cause "nobody will buy expensive cards to play games" while Nvidia laughed at them selling their 2000€ 4090s.
Intel had all the mindshare among PC enthusiasts with their CPUs. All it took was a competetive product and good price (Ryzen 7000 series and especially 7800x3d) and guess what? AMD regained the market share in DYI PCs in no time! The same could've have happened with Radeon 5000, Radeon 6000 and Radeon 7000.
But meh. Why bother. Let's cancell high-end RDNA 4 and use the TSMC wafers for AI and then let the clueless "analysts" make their articles about "gaming demand dwingling".
I'm sure low-end, very overpriced and barely faster if not slower RDNA4 will turn things around. It will have AI and RT! Two things nobody asked for, especially not gamers who'd like to use the PC for what's most exciting about PC gaming (VR, high framerate gaming, hi-res gaming).
8000 series will be slow, overpriced and marketed based on its much improved RT/AI... and it will flop badly.
And there will be no sane conclusions made at AMD about that. There will be just one, insane: Gaming is not worth catering to. Let's go into AI/RT instead, what could go wrong..."
Well that's gonna happen when you don't really try. I want to support AMD so badly and give Nvidia some actual competition but they don't very much seem interested in challenging, by their own accord. I been waiting for them to attack the GPU segment the same way they took over CPU, but they just seem so content with handing Nvidia the market year after year, and it's happening again this year with their cancelled high end card.
AMD prcied their cards thinking that they will sell out just like in the mining craze. I suspect reality has hit home when they realized most gamers cannot afford to spend over $500 for a gpu.
AMD has long been the best value option if you're looking for a new GPU. Now even their latest Radeon RX 7000 series is getting cheaper.
Last September, we unleashed AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3)1 on the gaming world, delivering massive FPS improvements in supported games.
So to put 2 and 2 together... FSR 3.1 is releasing later this year and the launch game to support it is Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. In Sony's DevNet documentation it shows Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart as the example for PSSR. PS5 Pro also launches later this year... but there is something else coming too: AMD RDNA 4 Cards (The very same technology thats in the Pro). So, PSSR is either FSR 3.1 or its a direct collaboration with AMD for that builds on FSR 3.1. Somehow they are related. I think PSSR is FSR 3.1 with the bonus of AI... now lets see if RDNA 4 cards also include an AI block.
More details:
FSR 3.1 fixes Frame Generation
If you have a 30 series RTX card you can now use DLSS3 with FSR Frame Generation (No 40 Series required!)
Its Available on all Cards (we assume it will come to console)
Fixes Temporal stability
I wonder how much they fixed the ghosting in dark areas as Nvidia are leaving them in the dust with image quality. Still good that they are improving in big leaps, I'll have to see when the RTX5000 series is released who I go with... at the moment the RTX5000's are sounding like monsters.
I can see why the author is concerned. Its hard enough using a pc to game without Steambox and Mantle being in the picture. The guy is right, now that SteamOs and Mantle exist its going to fragment the pc market. Its going to stretch 3rd party devs thin trying to code for pc, mantle, consoles and SteamOs. We certainly might see a migration of pc gamers to consoles.
I honestly dont see the point on steam machines, just buy the same parts and build a pc ! I reckon valve should have made something like the vitaTV so just stream pc games to tv and have it bundled with that new controller
Destroy to rebuild it ! down w/ DX/M$ up with Mantle/Linux
The certain thing is that developpers will develop games to the plateforms that bring them most money.
Seing that most of multi plateform games actually are first released in console plateforms before PC is scary. But worse than that, is seing games being released into tablets/smartphones intead of consoles and PC is even more scarier.
I believe that valve and AMD's actions are correct. If PC gaming does not change or evolve from this stagnade position they, the futur of PC will not be bright.
I do not think it will ruin PC gaming. Especially since it's still a PC one are playing on.
It will open up the world of PC gaming to a allot more people. Personally I would buy a new cabinet and move my hardware over to a living-room friendly cabinet and play games with Steam OS and their new controller where I could.
And a mouse & keyboard on games I would prefer that.
I use my PC only for gaming. I have other devices to comment and read sites like this.