End Game

So will Nvidia and AMD learn from this situation, the answer is no. Once the graphics cards are available it won’t stop people from throwing their money at both companies and all will be forgiven. History will repeat itself since we have a new generation from gamers coming in at a rapid pace. Even if a small percentage of consumers have a problem, all of the companies are banking on the majority at the end of the day anyways. Plus we still have more GPUs releasing early next year from both companies on the higher and lower end. So how do we prevent scalping, it’s simple, make sure you have enough of the product on hand before rushing it to the market; the product must be widely available. This won’t prevent bots and crazy pricing, but it would at least make people think twice before buying a product solely for the intent of reselling it at a ridiculous higher price point.

I do like some of the measures that Best Buy has taken and NewEgg (somewhat), but just like when Cyber Security was a big thing, it’s time for companies to adapt to the world today. Online shopping is ruining one industry at a time and we need to ensure that we can purchase the items physically from actual stores. Companies must setup away to verify legit purchasers which means they must invest. We cannot allow GPUs to only be purchased solely online due to situations like this. This would lead to great PR, but I doubt if many companies will change their entire structure solely for popular Graphics Cards; regardless of how many “recommendations” AMD sends to retailers\e-tailers. They will take the cheapest route to try to ease the pain while capitalizing at the same time. Best Buy requiring purchasers to pick up the GPUs in store is a great step to ensure that only one person is receiving a GPU from them. That can't be the only solution, especially for those who don't live near a Best Buy, but it's a step in the right direction.

People can live with a few weeks of waiting, but waiting several months is pushing it. Christmas is right around the corner and we are reading reports that the shortages might not get better until Q1 2021 which could push the shortages well into February or March of next year if the demand stays this high. Releasing in Q1 2021 would be better, but companies have targets to hit and profits to make. We still have more GPUs releasing Q1 2021 next year so things could actually get worse since both companies have shown us that they aren’t ready to fulfill the demand. With all of that being said I still look forward to benchmarking whatever I can get my hands on at some point at decent prices near MSRP. This is an ongoing situation so I will add updates accordingly. Stay tuned.

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