John Carmack proposed an auction system for popular game products like GPUs, PS5 and Xbox Series X. Carmack, the co-founder of id software, believes that “it would be really better if we had a transparent auction system directly from manufacturers and a market more efficient. “
This type of auction system could be used to beat money changers, who would not be willing to pay inflated prices for highly valued new products. “There would be a lot of outrage at the prices released immediately, but removing the middlemen should pay off better for consumers in the end,” says Carmack on Twitter.
Due to the global chip shortage and incredible demand, the real price of a PS5 was over $ 1,000 in December, and the RTX 3080s were selling for $ 1,227 instead of the $ 699 tag price. older graphics cards are sold out now, and the resale value on eBay is rising.
Nvidia is even bringing back its old RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs to deal with the global chip shortage. The supply situation is also expected to last for months. Microsoft has warned that the Xbox Series X will be out of stock until June, and Nvidia says its supplies will be scarce at least until May.
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Supply restrictions are obviously an issue, but Nvidia revealed last month that its $ 499 or more RTX 30 series GPUs sold almost twice as much as the RTX 20 series sold after the same period of time. Many people are clearly trying to update their PCs, and even the PS5 has been selling as well as the PS4 during its launch period, despite supply restrictions.
An auction system can eliminate money changers who try to profit from this supply and demand cycle, but unless all manufacturers participate, it is unlikely to have a significant impact. We have seen many attempts to stop scalpers, including retailers with their own queue systems, or by bundling these new GPUs and consoles with additional products.
All of the latest AMD and Nvidia GPUs can still be found at inflated prices on eBay, and additional taxes on video cards imported from China have also raised prices in the U.S.
Nvidia is even trying to meet demand for its $ 329 RTX 3060 graphics card, making it less attractive to Ethereum cryptocurrency miners. The drivers needed for the RTX 3060 to work will negate Ethereum’s mining hash rate by about 50 percent to make the cards more game-focused.
Carmack is not a fan of Nvidia’s latest approach. “What a terrible engineering task to give someone – find out when we’re being used for this thing we’re really good at and break it,” said Carmack on Twitter.