Phone makers, trying to renew consumer appetite, are turning to virtual reality headsets that can be paired with their devices to view videos and play games.
“With a slowing smartphone market, one of the ways to generate additional profit is to become a major player in new categories like smartwatches, cameras or virtual reality goggles,” said Ian Fogg, head of mobile at research firm IHS.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.
They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.
If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.
It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
LucasRuinedChildhood,
For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:
1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.
2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".
Growth driven by digital software and console hardware sales.
The winner of the Pokémon Go Championship grand finals in Orlando was stripped of their title, allegedly for 'unsportsmanlike conduct' during their victory celebration. The celebration involved the winner removing their headset, standing up, and pumping their fists before shaking hands with their opponent. Many believe the ruling was excessive and that winner's victory celebration was tame compared to celebrations by winners in other competitive games.
There are people that get offended seeing others just enjoying a moment, or enjoying a hobby, or just having fun.
Can someone explain to me what is so problematic with this? I watched video multiple times and all I see dude having bit of celebration. None of his actions felt aggressive or seem like they symbolize anything... Like winning sure deserves bit of celebration like that. I mean who wants to live in the world where you aren't allowed to be excited or have bit of burst of happiness when you win? Like was he supposed to act like emotionless robot? He should be allowed to have bit of his victory "hell yeah" moment, even if it is before shaking hands with opponent. Like it is not like he didn't shake hands or whatnot. And it is not like he is like some super serious government official to have to stick to protocol to a letter. This whole thing is just ridiculous.
To the despair of the predictable detractors, VR does have a strong and relevant future.
Samsung, Apple, Google, Facebook, Valve, Sony - HUGE names in the consumer electronics, technology and gaming businesses are all investing heavily in the long-term potential of the VR revolution. If the tech was a short-term fad and gimmick, then you wouldn't find all of these smart future-looking businesses jumping to invest int something that they aren't going to see a long-term return on.
If they can get games like uncharted 4 working on it and also do something about the price, then yes. As is I can't see people paying $500 for something with limited support. I'm also not sure if the non core audience wants to strap themselves into a vr helmet for hours at a time. I know I don't want to be wearing a vr helmet, I have a family and a life going on around me.
*360 degree video and *virtual reality are going to be what people with mobile phones, consoles, PC are going to put their interest in within the next couple of weeks/months.
Think film makers' and those aspiring to be one will adopt this tech - advertising, documentaries, art/concept, 2D/3D live action and animation films.