By the way, I forgot one thing: Happy 2023 you folks!

Got homeworld yet? :P

Yes!

But don't expect me to play it soon!

What will be everyone's first game that they will play on the PC this year?

(Or if another platform, what game?)

30 million peak of concurrent Steam users and ~10 million peak of Steam gamers "in-game" seems to be the new normal (at least for the winter holidays):

So PC gaming still ain't dying yet.

Happy New Year lads

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Reference Models Might Have A Faulty Vapor Chamber That Causes Overheating

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-reference-models-might-have-a-faulty-vapor-chamber-that-causes-overheating/

The circus continues

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 3DMark performance leaks out

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-3dmark-performance-leaks-out

Would have been a beast at $500 or $600 but alas

My brother has come for lunch and because he can't play at his place (the poor sould has a Mac), he used my PC to play Age of Empires II HD, like he usually does. I've actually bought the Definitive Edition for him, just so he can play, but he has to finish a map yet.

As for me... I haven't decided yet. I may play some more Euro Truck Simulator 2 or maybe I'll install the Long War mod for XCOM and play that. We'll see, I may even go for something completely different.

Not yet.

But at the current prices, the adoption rate of new GPUs will be a lot slower, which may have an impact on how far do some developers push the boundaries of their games.

But that's something you'll be able to tell us with your Steam stats thread.

Since most games are multiplatform games, they'll have to run on an PS5 and Xbox Series X anyways. So the hardware minimum is set for the next 4 - 5 years. If they are also released on Xbox, they even have to run on an Xbox Series S. The next Nintendo system will probably have lower specs than the Series S.

So affordable GPUs like the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 should be able to run all the games of the next years. Future entry GPUs like the RTX 4050, RTX 5050, RX 7500 and RX 8500 should also keep up with PS5 and Series X and therefore be fast enough the next years for a good gaming experience.

Gaming on PC in general doesn't get super expensive, only the spectrum widens in both directions... to a new "super enthusiast segment" in one direction, to capable low powered systems in the other direction (systems with APUs, Steam Deck for $400...).

Oh, I'm not saying that PC wont get as many ports or that it won't be able to keep with consoles, far from it.

I'm just saying that developers won't have as much incentive to try to push the technical and graphical limits of their games when they make the ports to PC, like using RT for more than shadows and other effects that can also be done on consoles, and that will be because the more capable GPUs are getting more expensive, limiting the number of consumers that would be able to make use of those extra settings and, therefore, there is less incentive to spend the extra time and money to push the limits.

Bugger. I was going to nag you daily too. Haha