Really fun watch. I probably am more aware of this than most so most of the contextual information was “common sense” or “open secrets”, but never really saw anyone put it that clearly or blatantly before. And the technical segments (building a frankenboard) were awesome.
Although one thing me and a few buddies keep wondering but are too afraid to ask legal about: Did Steve actually film himself committing a crime when he bought the card? Like, he as a US citizen is a party that can buy one of those and as long as he didn’t give it to anyone else, it is no different than buying and shipping a card from a less than reputable source. But it also raises every single export control flag in my head.
My conclusion is that the US is getting what it wants out of the importation block regardless of smuggling or “fell of the assembly line”.
Universities (China and the US) want a warranty on that hardware. They can’t get a warranty on smuggled hardware. That’s where you would have researchers building models. The GPUs they have are getting old and they don’t have replacements lined up.
The other place to build models is corporations, who might choose to ignore the warranty issue, but they can’t possibly get enough high end GPUs to actually do that. Not while using mules who can only bring in one or two at a time. Maybe they can find a way to smuggle things en masse, but they’d likely just make themselves a target to US trade authorities.
That leaves Chinese gamers as the only ones who want smuggled GPUs at all. US trade policy doesn’t give a shit about them.
So yes, there’s smuggling, Nvidia certainly knows about it, US trade authorities certainly know about it, but nobody has any reason to care.
I watched it the first time. Too long. Pretty boring. Great that he made it for people who need evidence that Nvidia was smuggling GPUs. I kinda just assumed that’s what was happening. You’d have to be naive not to.
My biggest gripe with noclip is that their documentaries feel just a tad too corporate. Like i'm(!) personally(!) convinced some money was exchanged between the dev/publisher to make these docs happen. (allegedly, no proof, vibes)
BUT(!!) idk how else you would get that close access to the stories they like to tell. Also they're really fucking good at telling and surfacing stories in these tight constraints tbh. If you're not a particular fan of a topic they cover it can feel sometimes a bit 'shilly'. But if you are in some capacity fan they always give you some really cool insights into the development of 'your' game. Danny O'Dwyer is a fucking magician in that regard. I never feel cheated besides the thoughts in my first sentences in my post.
Nothing is more exciting in a gameplay reveal than starting with 5 minutes of slowly driving a car.
But really this looks like Hitman trying to be Uncharted. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it does look too similar to their last games, just with more scripted action sequences.
Sometimes it’s an unfortunate demo effect where the devs have a form of gameplay they prefer that just doesn’t impress investors on a big screen. So, they shift toward the run-and-gun playstyle.
I seem to remember getting surprised by some AAAs in this way, where I expected them to be brainless action, then find myself strategizing in ways that E3 didn’t show since those bits are slower paced. Haven’t watched the video just yet though.
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Aktywne