r/Games • u/SharkyIzrod • 4d ago

Industry News Nvidia reportedly ends GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card production

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nvidia-reportedly-ends-geforce-rtx-5090-graphics-card-production
2.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

u/Zaptruder 4d ago

Existing GPUs and games will still exist... and a raft of smaller developers happy to continue serving the old model.

I don't think gaming will be going the way of the cloud, as much as tech execs would love that.

24

u/Fenixius 4d ago

They only last a decade or two, though, so if home gaming GPU production is completely subsumed into AI hardware production, it'll only be around 15-20 years that people who buy cards today can keep them going... 

16

u/Zaptruder 4d ago

I think that assumes that AI hardware build out continues at the current rate and that production capacity doesn't catch up to fulfill demand and that alternatives don't also attempt to step in to fill a still reasonably lucrative void.

1

u/Fenixius 4d ago

I do assume all of that.

Unless there's another software breakthrough on the level of the transformer, I don't see why the hardware buildout would slow. Compute demand will be infinite, so that users (i.e.: militaries and corporations) can access bigger context windows, process more files faster, and store more data forever. It will never end, and suppliers will not provide enough supply to even out pricing - why would they ever? That doesn't guarantee a return for their rentseeking investors.

And "reasonably lucrative" means "uncompetitive" in a highly-capitalised world like ours; there's so much money flying around now that "reasonably lucrative" means "not investing in AI". That part might change, if the finance bubble bursts, but I wouldn't bet on it.

3

u/Zaptruder 4d ago

Well... typically the way it works is that many potential producers spy a burgeoning market, they rush to catch some of the high margins, but getting up to speed takes time while demand fluctuates heavily... by the time they enter the market, the demand may have changed for the worse creating an oversupply situation, and thus driving back down prices.

The fault in your assumption is that demand is infinite... the difference between massive and infinite is... infinite.

2

u/Fenixius 4d ago

I wish you were right. Unfortunately, demand can be functionally infinite if supply is carefully managed to always be a bit less than demand, and if entry costs and timelines for competitors are extremely high. Otherwise, we'd see competition for end-user RAM and GPUs. We're half a decade into the supply shortages for these products, but we don't. 

2

u/Zaptruder 4d ago

The GPU side has ridden quite a wave of hype cycles... but the ram shortage has only been around for 18 or so months or less.

It takes 2-3 years and tens of billions to make new RAM manufacturing facilities, and the hype cycle needs to sustain for long enough for the players to want to take that risk... and basically we've just crested that threshold in the last few months, which means there's still a couple more years of ram pricing lag, which probably won't go fulfilled in the first wave.

But as other players enter with rising margins, the successive ram facilities coming in may well overshoot the demand....

Especially if the demand pivots dramatically as the state of the art switches its attack methodology and focuses on other bottle necks in the supply chain (as RAM demand itself was the result of a pivot switch due to the changes in the way frontier models operate).

1

u/JonesDahl 4d ago

i think you are right when it comes to products that aren't at the bleeding edge of technology. new players aren't really a thing when it comes to semi conductor manufacturing.

2

u/Shuino7 4d ago

Not how things work. You'll end up with a small percentage keeping existing hardware, but the other 95% will move on.

No one will be releasing games on PC when it doesn't exist in the future. The current PC we have won't exist.

Everyone will have Streaming machines. (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo)

7

u/TuzkiPlus 4d ago

If no one's got me, I know my PSX and Crash Bandicoot got me. Don't die on me lil buddy...

5

u/Shuino7 4d ago

I have some 500+ physical games. I'm set as well 😆.

5

u/Academic-Factor-4551 4d ago

No, people won’t. These things aren’t feasible to consumers without severe physical limitations.

4

u/darkkite 4d ago

streaming won't work. the economics doesn't scale.

5

u/Academic-Factor-4551 4d ago

The physics don’t work either. Even casual NBA 2k / CoD gamers will notice how shitty streaming video games is. The laws of physics currently prohibit it from being a feasible service or product. It would take a complete overhaul of our existing network infrastructure, or a new technology. Just to stream video games lmao

2

u/Panicgreenonioncake 4d ago

the future sure is bleak

2

u/Cyrotek 4d ago

Or gaming as a hobby as we know it will simply die and everything is just mobile slop.