Nvidia Phases Out RTX 30 Series Ahead of RTX 4070 | Mobile Gaming is Rebounding Even as Players Spend Less
What's on Tap This Week?- Nvidia phases out the RTX 30 series ahead of the RTX 4070.
- Report: Mobile gaming is rebounding some, even as gamers spend less.
- Other News: Meta, Valve, & more
GPU
Nvidia Phases out RTX 30 Series Ahead of RTX 4070 What will Nvidia's new mainstream GPU cost?
We Hardly Knew You
Nvidia's online store removed its Founders Edition video cards, from the mainstream RTX 3060 up to the once-flagship RTX 3090 Ti. Similarly, BestBuy.com, which is is Nvidia’s exclusive distributor for reference cards in North America, appears to have sold through its stock of Nvidia RTX 30 FE cards. It's down to only two listings ($599 RTX 3070 Ti and $499 RTX 3060 Ti), both of which are showing out-of-stock.
- Best Buy drastically cut prices of its remaining RTX 30 series placements last month.
- Most sold out within a day, suggesting stock wasn’t that high in the first place.
- RTX 30 series originally launched in September 2020.
- Though well received, price gouging and supply shortages soured many potential buyers.
Additionally, seven of these placements are from Zotac, a partner notorious during the pandemic for its voluminous sales to cryptominers. In other words, it looks like most of the major players are bidding the RTX 30 series adieu while Zotac sells off stock left from the cryptomining bubble.
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
Nvidia’s RTX 4070, its first relatively “mainstream” GPU this generation, is reportedly arriving April 13. Its price will be an important bellwether for upcoming GPUs from not only Nvdia, but AMD and Intel. Is that growing light at the end of the tunnel an affordable, quality video card, or Nvidia about to run over customers with another generational price hike untethered from performance uplifts?
Popular leaker Moore’s Law is Dead (which has a mixed record with hardware leaks) is reporting that the RTX 4070 will be $749, only $50 less than the already controversially priced $799 RTX 4070 Ti. While we fully expect Nvidia to use the RTX 4070 as an excuse to hike the MSRP from the $499 RTX 3070, that figure seems improbable. Such a narrow $50 delta would likely make differentiating the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti more trouble than its worth. On the other hand, Nvidia did originally try to launch the RTX 4070 Ti at $899. To say that the company has a history of boldness when it came to price increases would be an understatement.
Splitting the Embargo
Nvidia is also curiously splitting up its review embargoes for the RTX 4070 by price, as opposed to the more traditional split that prioritized reviews of reference cards over partner cards. MSRP cards will break embargo on April 12, while non-MSRP cards will have to wait until the day of launch, April 13. The difference is minor, but it’s worth keeping an eye on – partners generally rely more on higher-margin, non-MSRP video cards, which this move doesn't favor.
-Avery Bissett, Head Writer
Mobile Gaming
Report: Mobile Gaming is Rebounding Players are returning, but not spending as much
A Rising Tide
Unity studios are gleefully diving back into mobile gaming, with large studios (300+ people) reporting a 44% increase in mobile-only production and upper midmarket studios (150-299 people) reporting over a 10% increase. In the past 18 months or so, mobile gaming has taken its lumps, from a slowing economy to ad data policy changes from Apple. It seems many publishers are once again moving toward mobile games and their frequent recurring revenue streams as overall game industry spending stalls.
- Games are gaining longer lifespans, with 2022's median game age increasing 33% YoY.
- Larger studios, and by extension larger titles, tend to support games longer.
Console and PC gamers need not worry, however, as Unity studios also reported a 16% YoY increase in multi-platform projects, with 88% of studios with 50 or more people developing multi-platform titles. Again, this growth is being heavily driven by larger studios interested in AAA (or as close to that as possible) releases.
- PC is the preferred platform for multiplatform developers (76%).
- 70% of studios that develop games for consoles also target PC.
- 77% of indie studios opt for PC, despite mobile gaming's growth in recent years.
The good news for mobile gaming at the moment is daily active users in 2022 increased 8% YoY; the bad news is the rate of paying active users slipped 2% (this also doesn’t take inflation into account). Overall, fewer gamers are watching ads and spending money, which could have implications on how games are monetized down the road.
- Microtransactions (31%) and ads (32%) are the most popular monetization models with mobile gamers.
-Avery Bissett, Head Writer
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Supply Drop: Games & Players
Upcoming Games (March 17 - 23)
Deceive Inc. – PC, PlayStation, Xbox
The Guise – PlayStation, Xbox, Switch
Have a Nice Death – Switch
Peppa Pig: World Adventures – PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch
Remnant: From the Ashes – Switch
Tchia – PC, PlayStation
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution – PSVR 2
WWE 2K23 – PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Comms: Social Campaigns
The Tap: News to Go
- PC: The Epic Games Store saw a peak of 34.3 million daily active users last year, according to its 2022 Year in Review. Player spending on third-party apps was up 18% YoY to $355 million, with Epic's games bringing that figure up to $820 million (-2% YoY).
- Cloud Gaming: In a bid to placate regulators, Microsoft has signed deals with Ubitus and Boosteroid to bring Xbox PC and Activision Blizzard games to those cloud gaming platforms. While both are relatively small deals, Ubitus operates on the Nintendo Switch; additionally, the cloud gaming market is relatively small, so every deal matters to regulators. (Courtesy of The Verge)
- VR: Global shipments of AR/VR headsets dropped 21% YoY to 8.8 million units in 2022, according to IDC. The firm attributed this to overall economic conditions, lack of mass appeal from consumers, and the limited number of vendors. Meta continued to dominate the market with nearly 80% share of shipments, followed by ByteDance at 10%.
- Mobile: Valve is unlikely to release the next iteration of its popular Steam Deck for a few years. The company appears to also have ruled out a mid-gen refresh with an OLED panel, a la the Nintendo Switch. (Courtesy of PC Gamer)
