I don't think developers can afford a generational leap from this one anyway (as in a traditional graphics), this AI stuff basically hammering the hardware side just makes it more of a slam dunk that people are going to be riding out the hardware they have now possibly for years longer.
Like those Steam hardware charts, you'll probably see a rush for some people to get the current crop of GPUs before the price increase but after the price increase, likely you're going to see not many people buying the 60 series and onwards. Devs will adjust and say "well OK, looks like we're making games primarily for the 20-50 series of cards with our median user having a 30 series maybe" for a long while.
The play for Nvidia in the long term I think is to basically offer non-local hardware that is rendered non traditionally through AI cores only, but you will not own the hardware for that, you will pay Nvidia to basically rent their GPUs. Maybe some kind of hybrid where hit detection is local on the hardware device (even a smartphone) but the graphics environment is photo-real AI generated and streamed to your device.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 02 January 2026
