Have Nvidia, AMD and Intel decided to kill the PC gaming market?

the computer hardware market They’ve been growing for years, at least the ones related to video games. Recently, however, it seems to have stalled somewhat. In fact, it looks like someone, in particular Nvidia, AMD and partly even Intel, is trying to Kill himAlbeit unintentionally. The news about sales of new video game hardware shows a somewhat problematic situation, as the latest generations of video cards and processors are very much struggling to establish themselves.

In particular, sales of new offerings from Nvidia, AMD, and much of Intel (although a separate discussion of CPUs should be made) proved so sluggish, that the first price cuts arrived soon after. Not discounts, remember, but permanent price cuts, which seem pleasant at least in times of such crises, since prices tend to be higher on average.

To get an idea of the spread of the latest generations graphics processing units (less than the CPU, whose data is more fuzzy) Just take a look at Scan Steam Devices, which provides an interesting statistical sample for sure. The most used GPU is the GeForce GTX 1650 (6.05%), followed by the 1060 (5.58%) and 2060 (4.48%). Coming in at number four is the 30-series GPU, the Notebook 3060 at 4.46%. Therefore, we find 3060 in sixth place with a rate of 3.29% and 3070 in eighth place with a rate of 2.35%. The first 3080 shows up in 15th place, with a percentage of 1.78%, while to find a GPU from the very last 40th series, you have to look at the “Other” item, where all GPUs add up to less than 0.15%. So even in the most optimistic case, adding the RTX 4080 and 4090, we come to 0.28% of the total.

The perception is that the hardware sector that stage shows is full of ray tracing and cutting edge technologies, but in reality it flops a lot in terms of audience reach. The recent proposals, presented as revolutionary, are actually adopted by very few people, as the market continues to evolve around the cheaper offers, which are nonetheless hiding.

Error hardware manufacturers Obviously: caught up in the upward race, they have forgotten the average consumer, those who would never spend 1000, 1500 or 2000 euros on a processor or GPU. The economy version of a product worth around €2,000 cannot cost €1,500. How can you be surprised by the fact that the warehouses are full of RTX 4080?

Previously, when a new generation of devices was announced, one could be sure that along with more expensive offers, there would also be cheaper and more affordable ones. Rather in recent years, for various reasons (cultivating cryptocurrencies, difficulties in developing new technologies, opening up new markets, increasing production costs, semiconductor crisis etc.), prices have literally exploded, which, at least, has kept the whole sector in check. From the point of view of technological progress. The PC is still heavily used for gaming, as evidenced by the steady growth in Steam’s numbers), yet it seems to be stagnating in a way it hasn’t in years.

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