Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#31

Post by ndriscoll » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:47 PM UTC

ViktorRay wrote: post #2

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles launched in Fall of 2020. That’s almost 6 years ago. The PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox should be launching soon. If not this fall then perhaps next fall when it will be 7 years from the launch of the current generation. How will the memory crisis impact all of this? Also I find it kind of ironic. In the 2010’s PC gamers would go online all the time and sneer about how conso…

It's probably more that hardware and software were still rapidly getting better in 2004, and HL2 looked significantly better than HL1. By contrast, just looking up the two on youtube, Doom the Dark Ages on ps5 pro isn't obviously any better looking than, say, Skyrim (2011). Even Morrowind looks pretty good with some high resolution pbr textures and a few new shaders.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#32

Post by musicale » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

weezing wrote: post #29

musicale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing worth noting released on those consoles Have you heard of Elden Ring? Or is your complaint about cross-gen, timed exclusives, and PC releases? Or that there aren't enough new franchises beyond established series and remakes? Personally I see all of the above as fine. For example Capcom has Resident Evil Requiem (series), Onimusha (remake), and Pragmata (new).

All PC games. This generation of consoles was just worthless, no meaningful exclusives. The only thing that might save them is GTA VI.

GTA6 is presumably a timed exclusive, so why ignore other timed console exclusives like... FFXVI, FF7 Remake, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stellar Blade, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding 2, Spider-Man 2, Rise of the Ronin, etc.?

And what about Astro Bot, Demon's Souls, Ghost of Yotei, Gran Turismo 7, Saros, Sons of Sparta, ...?

Or anything by Nintendo?

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#33

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 6:30 AM UTC

ViktorRay wrote: post #2

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles launched in Fall of 2020. That’s almost 6 years ago. The PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox should be launching soon. If not this fall then perhaps next fall when it will be 7 years from the launch of the current generation. How will the memory crisis impact all of this? Also I find it kind of ironic. In the 2010’s PC gamers would go online all the time and sneer about how conso…

> That’s almost 6 years ago. The PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox should be launching soon. If not this fall then perhaps next fall when it will be 7 years from the launch of the current generation.

They most likely won't.

Also given the current mess XBOX management happens to be in, as someone that has been on PC since 1991, I don't have big hopes Helix actually happens, or if they do release it, it would most likely be to comply with existing contracts and avoid possible lawsuits.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#34

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

musicale wrote: post #22

weezing wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gotta be least memorable generation of all time. Nothing worth noting released on those consoles.

> Nothing worth noting released on those consoles Have you heard of Elden Ring? Or is your complaint about cross-gen, timed exclusives, and PC releases? Or that there aren't enough new franchises beyond established series and remakes? Personally I see all of the above as fine. For example Capcom has Resident Evil Requiem (series), Onimusha (remake), and Pragmata (new).

Most of us don't suffer from FOMO for a few AAA titles.

There is hardly anything that would make me shell out for a console like I did with the PS2, and that was only because eventually I could get PS2 Linux, with official access to the hardware, minus a few tidbits.

PS3 OtherOS killed and without graphics acceleration.

XNA and UWP Developer mode, killed.

Games themselves, plenty of choice on PC stores.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#35

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 6:34 AM UTC

musicale wrote: post #32

weezing wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All PC games. This generation of consoles was just worthless, no meaningful exclusives. The only thing that might save them is GTA VI.

GTA6 is presumably a timed exclusive, so why ignore other timed console exclusives like... FFXVI, FF7 Remake, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stellar Blade, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding 2, Spider-Man 2, Rise of the Ronin, etc.? And what about Astro Bot, Demon's Souls, Ghost of Yotei, Gran Turismo 7, Saros, Sons of Sparta, ...? Or anything by Nintendo?

Looks to back catalogue since ZX Spectrum, Amiga and all the other systems, available on PC.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#36

Post by ahartmetz » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 7:30 AM UTC

SapporoChris wrote: post #28

aurareturn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the AI shortage, Moore’s Law has ended which means in order to get faster chips, you have to use bigger dies, fancier packaging, more cooling, more power. This increases costs. A PS6 really doesn’t increase much over the PS5 even without the AI shortage. You’re probably getting doubled the performance at best, which barely makes a noticeable difference in gaming when PS1 to PS2 had 180x better GPU. I think th…

Your conclusion that "... in order to get faster chips, you have to use bigger dies, fancier packaging, more cooling, more power.", is really not supported by the ending of Moore's law. Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years, with minimal increase in cost.

In any case, hardware progress has slowed to a crawl. Maybe a new console every 10 years makes sense now.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#37

Post by lenkite » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 8:08 AM UTC

TitaRusell wrote: post #19

adrian_b wrote: post #4

For USA, indeed there is no end in sight to the memory crisis, as long as its politicians work for companies like Micron, which obtains huge profits from the inflated memory prices. A few days ago, the representatives John Moolenaar (R-MI) and George Whitesides (D-CA) have urged the Trump administration to prevent the purchase by US companies of DRAM and flash memory made by the Chinese manufacturers, which are the o…

There will come a point were countries are forced to choose between China and the US. The choice may shock some Americans lol.

Trump will send the US Navy to intercept all cargo ships demanding his 20%. A defensive action to protect the US economy and US national security. (and increase Trump family wealth for the beautiful job)

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#38

Post by musicale » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #35

musicale wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GTA6 is presumably a timed exclusive, so why ignore other timed console exclusives like... FFXVI, FF7 Remake, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stellar Blade, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding 2, Spider-Man 2, Rise of the Ronin, etc.? And what about Astro Bot, Demon's Souls, Ghost of Yotei, Gran Turismo 7, Saros, Sons of Sparta, ...? Or anything by Nintendo?

Looks to back catalogue since ZX Spectrum, Amiga and all the other systems, available on PC.

Pretty much this. Everything is a timed exclusive and eventually available on PC through emulation etc.

That being said, it's still nice to be able to easily run something like Demon's Souls, Fable 2/3, or the latest Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Pokémon/Fire Emblem/Animal Crossing/etc. without having to mess with emulation.

The games that really seem to have vanished into the sands of time are MMOs with no available private server. Though I still hope to be able to play DC Universe Online, Wildstar, etc. someday.

Re: Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

#39

Post by musicale » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #34

musicale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing worth noting released on those consoles Have you heard of Elden Ring? Or is your complaint about cross-gen, timed exclusives, and PC releases? Or that there aren't enough new franchises beyond established series and remakes? Personally I see all of the above as fine. For example Capcom has Resident Evil Requiem (series), Onimusha (remake), and Pragmata (new).

Most of us don't suffer from FOMO for a few AAA titles. There is hardly anything that would make me shell out for a console like I did with the PS2, and that was only because eventually I could get PS2 Linux, with official access to the hardware, minus a few tidbits. PS3 OtherOS killed and without graphics acceleration. XNA and UWP Developer mode, killed. Games themselves, plenty of choice on PC stores.

Prices have gone up since then, but at the time this article claimed $7/fps for PS5 vs. $17/fps for Steam Machine (which attempts to provide a console-like experience):

https://www.steamfps.com/guides/steam-machine-vs-ps5