will pc gaming die or become a hobby for rich people only because of ai demand or bubble?

Playing pc games and using Windows is the biggest failure. You simply don't play pc games nor use Windows. Console games are better than pc games. Use Linux instead of Windows.

Looked at general prices of some stuff you'd use recently, and they don't seem to be higher atm, and AI has been out for a while. Not saying it can't happen but if it hasn't yet when will it?

PC gaming has a lot of options for different income levels and the top end always paid insane prices while mid to lower end setups FEAST on scraps. The used gaming PC you build will generally run the same games better than a new PS5 for less overall. So unless the used stuff somehow becomes too scarce and goes up in price, which I don't see happening, I'm doubtful PC gaming would become this rich only thing.

@Shishio-kun have you seen ddr5 32gb ram prices at the moment? very expensive compared to few months ago and they say its only the start

@deg

Rut roh. You're right. Deg was right again. That stuff has indeed gone up in price dramatically. It's even more expensive used today than it was new. This is kind of scary ^_^'

It seems that at this rate, high tier gamers may have to scale back on their future PC builds if they can't afford it. tbh, a lot of gamers spent way more than necessary anyways!

I know a ton of PC gamers who also have a newer console too, myself included. With higher prices, maybe we would end up having a choice between the gaming PC you want NOW vs having the gaming PC + console. They will pick the PC every time, as it is so superior when it comes to gaming it's not even close.

So with that I don't see this ending PC gaming, reducing it to a rich hobby, but this will definitely cause delays and degraded quality for many PC gamers with it jacking up prices.

Might grab a new SSD too just for backup to avoid buying it later lol.

@Shishio-kun yep ssd prices will cost more in the future too

and speaking of consoles im almost sure they will increase prices of it too or they will reduce the size of ssd and ram of them

Would take atleast 2 to 3 years for prices to stabilize.

Most major manufacturers actually cut production few years ago because of falling prices due to oversupply.

They'll probably triple or quadruple their output now to make profit from demands, but then would be oversupplied again. (When Supply outputs more than the demands)

AI is also rapidly evolving so they'll create something faster than NVME and DDR5 RAM in the years to come (which normal people won't use anyway) this will stabilize the prices of SSD's and RAM in the following years.

@deg Well let me restate one thing I said - not "pretty much all PC gamers" - as there are still many other alternatives for RAM that don't seem affected by the pricing and can do PC gaming fine, just not higher end of course. A decent chunk tho.

However when ppl dont want to buy the expensive stuff and get the next tier it can indeed affect the prices of lower tier goods. So everyone might be impacted at least a little.

Hopefully we won't see some type of shortage though? Now that would be devastating! I've always wondered if a war would lead to something like that.

@Shishio-kun ye but as for shortage we are already in a shortage due to pc hardware manufacturers prioritizing ai hardware than consumer pc hardware plus recent news says crucial stops doing pc hardware so that is 30% of the ram and ssd market gone

Use streaming services like GeForce Now, or Xbox Cloud Gaming, if you find building a PC too expensive. These services are quite reliable these days. I mean, if you don't want to play competitive games.

@deg While I agree with the majority of responses, there are couple things I don't think ppl are considering

1) more companies bowing out, as you've mentioned, could create an unforeseen problem with shortage

2) what if there's an explosion in localized ghetto AI that actually turns a profit off of the upper mid to mid range RAM? For example, for offices to stay competitive, they require stronger specs to run the AI on the local machines. This isn't an impossibility given Windows 11 has some AI features (although in a way it has for a while). Or what if local machines can turn a profit off mid tier RAM with AI somehow? Much like when graphics cards were bought up en masse to generate bitcoin. My friend and I considered buying up a ton and running them in some office but then the price of Bitcoin dropped lol and it was no longer profitable to invest in such an operation with a bunch of used cards. Anyhow, such a situation with RAM would devastate a much larger portion of PC gamers than the DDR5 fiasco is currently.

JUST SAIYAN