Sounds like another console generation I’m skipping in that case. The middle of its lifespan means it’s on the way to life support in the near future. Never really went anywhere, which is a bit of a shame.
Or be surprised if it stuck around for the next 5 years. PS5 is already on the chopping block due to poor raytracing performance. The only thing keeping it around is most likely because Nvidia (and now also AMD) is too busy with AI to push graphics hardware.
And it's undergone like one remodel already, 5 years in. So, it's going to get another remodel about 2 or so years down the road, signifying again how close to its end it would be. Then we'd get an announcement about another 2 years from Sony themselves about the PS6 and whatever else.
Didn’t they say that about the PS4 just before the 5 was announced? They want you to buy their current console. Nintendo denied Switch 2 rumors right up to the announcement. Same reason.
Also to be fair, we’ve kind of plateaued in gaming performance and demand. Cyberpunk set the benchmark 5 years ago and nothing’s really topped it yet. And now the Switch 2 can run it, and so can Macs built like iPhones with the GPU, RAM, and CPU all on the same chip. My MacBook Air can run it. I run around and there’s no traffic and almost no pedestrians, but it works! (I previously owned the game on Steam. I did not buy it for my Mac.)
It’s more about the console’s lifecycle, rather than it remaining the ‘current generation’. They’re implying that they will continue to ‘support’ the PS5 for another 5 years, whatever they determine that to mean (likely just keeping the online store open, maybe also multiplayer servers, and whatever PlayStation Plus features ).
That makes more sense — and I bet they will, too. If they aren’t still supporting the PS4, they did for a while. PS2, also. PS3, I’m not so sure about, but that sounds like something Sony has done. A game will come out on Xbox, PlayStation, and the previous PlayStation.
PS5 and XSX are both still great for 1080p gaming, despite one claiming 8K (since removed) and the other (still) claiming 4K. I’ve heard the next generation will support 4K native, and this leap in performance will come with a leap in price. I’ve heard the Xbox will basically be a branded PC and run Steam titles (I think this is mostly hopium); if so, I wonder what PlayStation will do to compete. Besides continue to support the previous generation longer. Either way, they’re too expensive now; I can only imagine what the next ones will cost.
Assuming the AI bubble bursts before then, we might actually see somewhat reasonable pricing for next-gen consoles.
A major reason why prices have remained so inflated for so long post-COVID is because data centres have been sucking up every bit of silicon that TSMC has been able to pump out for both Nvidia and AMD.
But that would be honestly a very small upside, compared to what would likely be the Mother of All Stockmarket Crashes. The market cap of the Top 10 AI-related stocks is greater than the current US national debt, they aren’t in a position to be able to reasonably bail out those companies when it all eventually goes to shit, like they do in 2008.
The best way to think of them is as cousins; they are similar - but not exactly the same.
They focus more on higher VRAM and CUDA cores compared to GPUs, while forgoing 3d acceleration capabilities.
But they both come out of the same factories; so when the demand for AI cards is as high as it is now - and Nvidia can sell as many as it produces with a higher margin than GPUs, there is little incentive for them to produce more GPUs and sell them at a competitive price.
So when the AI bubble bursts, demand for AI cards will crater - and there will be no financial incentive to mass produce them in such high quantities. This frees up production capacity at the TSMC factories, incentivising production of lower margin products like GPUs.
Economics is largely a game of supply & demand; when supply outstrips demand, prices fall as sellers search for buyers. When demand outstrips supply prices go up as buyers search for sellers.
I don’t think it will — AI is just getting started, and I think it’s going to get a lot better in terms of what it can do and fooling more of us into thinking it’s real. I think it’s also going to pull more on the AI fence toward it than push them away, though those of us already firmly against it probably won’t budge much.
We’ve been talking about PlayStation, but specific to Xbox, Microsoft wants to bring Copilot to gaming, tapping into guides online (IGN and such) to get Copilot to be able to help you through a game, while you’re playing it. Like Clippy in Word… Copilot in Halo (or whatever). And it’s not going to be free. But we’ll also pay more for the Xbox that can do it, even if we aren’t paying for AI help. But I think Microsoft will try to justify the higher price of the next Xbox (hell, the Xbox handheld is $1000 to start) by getting out of software (game) exclusives, opening it up to Steam, and basically making branded gaming PCs. Yes it’s hopium when Xbox fanboys try to sell it as a sure thing, but, it makes sense. Xbox is porting its remaining exclusives over to PlayStation. But they show no signs of getting out of hardware, and opening up to Steam, especially if PlayStation doesn’t, makes an Xbox a sure sell with gamers, especially if it’s cheaper than building a gaming PC and they don’t want to mod. I don’t see a future for Xbox with neither exclusives nor third-party stores. And I don’t think anyone wants Sony to be the only “game” in town.
I’m not saying AI will go away, or not continue to improve - but we are very much at the tail end of the current mania phase, and we will see some market pullback as AI startups begin to go out of business when all of those lofty promises of AI fail to materialise.
Diminishing returns on ever increasing investment, circular investments based on speculative returns, these are all signs of the tail-end of a stock market bubble.
I thought its discussion of how much Civilization focuses on conquest, colonization, and combat over most other systems, to the point of it becoming a bit ridiculous if you try to go pacifist, was interesting. The year it was written didn’t seem a detriment.
not at all! it’s an ageless topic. just wild to read an article from almost 10 years ago that feels like it was written yesterday. Esp when Civ 7 is the new hotness, but Civ 6 still has more players.
I’ve seen a few Deity pacifist runs before, and a lot of my runs end up being pacifist as well when I want to focus more on city building and less on combat. Managing the diplomacy with AI civs is surprisingly not that hard in Civ 6, and surprise wars can be uncommon if you’re comfortable with building military units as a deterrent even if you never actually use them.
My favorite run that I’ve seen of this was actually with Khmer, using them to rush a culture victory as quickly as possible. It’s an interesting play pattern of managing relations to avoid wars and keep trade routes open (for bonus to tourism), city planning from the start for good natural park spots, etc.
Regardless, I definitely recommend a mod for map ticks. For the early game city planning, it makes such a huge difference and makes pacifist runs much more viable. You usually have more resources (naturally) for city building, so planning it from the start makes the turns go by much faster.
Edit: I should also add that there’s the barbarian clans game mode that makes it possible for them to turn into city-states. If you allow defensive combat, then that’s an option, and you can let the camps naturally turn into city-states or get pillaged by another player later on.
I’m not a big MH head or anything, so MH Wilds was my first game in the series. And I enjoyed it a lot!
HOWEVER, playing online with my brothers took so much trial and error we only did it a few times until we beat the story. Then it kinda wasn’t worth the hassle.
It’s so obtuse I can’t imagine how it even got that obtuse.
I think the obtuseness is a part of the MH experience. I’ve only played the PSP versions but they also had a “obtuseness” to them that, if it has carried throughout to the newer games, is part of the experience.
That’s not to say you can’t not like it, just based on your description it’s a common part of the game.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I must say, a ton of that obtuseness was sanded away in World, imo, for the better. I would hope it continues to trend away
Yeah, World got rid of a lot of (what I would consider dated and obtuse) mechanics but I don’t really see how much more they could sand off. Like I would like clearer elemental resistances (because I think the ones in World didn’t really represent monster weaknesses accurately) and better weapon attack numbers, but beyond the two I don’t really see where you could make it less obtuse. IMO finding monster weak spots is part of learning to fight the monster and knowing what skills complement which weapon is part of learning your chosen weapon. The skill explanations probably need to be clearer but I don’t know if that has gotten better because I don’t really pay attention to what the skill says as most skills are the same from game to game.
The story in MH games is really just the bare minimum skeleton for you to have some sense of progression. The games are really just about beating up monsters until you’re bored.
polygon.com
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