The next Xbox: Always online, no second-hand games, 50GB BD and new kinect


Recommended Posts

just wait for the day that you have to pay a monthly fee just to use that $400 game console you just bought... I can see XBOX live someday being a mandatory monthly fee, and PS doing something similar just to milk you like cell phone companies do

just wait for the day that you have to pay a monthly fee just to use that $400 game console you just bought... I can see XBOX live someday being a mandatory monthly fee, and PS doing something similar just to milk you like cell phone companies do

Xbox already does that to some extent :pinch:

Curious,

[/font][/color]

In other words, Sony's dev. tools/environment suck...again.

But then how would that work in a single household? If I bought a game and played with my ID and then someone else (younger brother etc.) wants to play the game - will they have to pay again? If they tie it to a console instead of a profile then what happens if I have multiple consoles in my home?

I don't think they can practically enforce this without causing a lot of hassle for us.

I don't think either Sony or Microsoft are stupid enough to pull such a stunt.

Well, how do games that have online passes work for you right now? If you go online with your copy and use the code that came with it what would your brother have to do then to also go online? He can't use the same code you did so doesn't he have to pay for his own pass in the end?

Always requires internet connection, PLUS expensive Xbox Live gold, PLUS all titles are really 'loaned' to you for the limited life of the console expectancy. Servers go down the console don't work..

Add on top the article that nearly every US company (minus google) selling internet make a 97% profit margin on it? Seems we know what's up here...

http://nextbigfuture...-margin-on.html

I hope this irradiates console gaming finally. Sony and MS are going the same route and the 4 pages so far in this thread isn't congratulating them.

Rather than shell out for a DRM box that drives up my internet usage meter, maybe I'll get a computer and play on that. Hell, maybe even an android tablet with HDMI out or an Ouya. This generation of gaming is only improving the profit margins. Both Sony and MS will have to do something unprecedented to win me and my money over this round. Sony especially. The PS3 was the biggest disappointment in console gaming I ever wasted $820 on.

I also don't think it would be too hard to 'log' your 'console blobs' and 'replay' them to the console on boot to 'fake online' via a bit of internet trickery and a local server.

Always requires internet connection, PLUS expensive Xbox Live gold, PLUS all titles are really 'loaned' to you for the limited life of the console expectancy. Servers go down the console don't work..

Add on top the article that nearly every US company (minus google) selling internet make a 97% profit margin on it? Seems we know what's up here...

http://nextbigfuture...-margin-on.html

I hope this irradiates console gaming finally. Sony and MS are going the same route and the 4 pages so far in this thread isn't congratulating them.

Rather than shell out for a DRM box that drives up my internet usage meter, maybe I'll get a computer and play on that. Hell, maybe even an android tablet with HDMI out or an Ouya. This generation of gaming is only improving the profit margins. Both Sony and MS will have to do something unprecedented to win me and my money over this round. Sony especially. The PS3 was the biggest disappointment in console gaming I ever wasted $820 on.

How is gaming improving profit margins, when I can buy brand new AAA games today for half the cost of what a SNES games cost back in the day, add in inflation and the price difference is more than that. and the cost of development, the SNES games where developed by 2-10 guys in a garage. modern triple A games cost as much as a high budget movie to make.

the SNES games where developed by 2-10 guys in a garage.

wow, that's just... wow.... SNES game development was no different then it is today, heck some of it was harder because you did a lot of it in assembly, had to actually proof funcitons and know a LOT about hardware optimization and scheduling that you don't have to think about now days.... some teams where huge..... Super Mario World had 50+people working on it in total (testing, coding, graphics, Sales, etc), 16 of them being coders..... some of the smaller games had teams of 20+ in total (with a minimum of usually 2 coders).. but SMW took three years to make!

And games today ahve the same amount of coders, they just also have 10's of 3D graphics artists, 10's of 2D graphics artists, animators, sound artists, sound effects guys, sound studios, voice actors, on modern AAA games there are often hundreds of people working on them.

I hope that rumor isn't true! If so it will definitely influence my decision. Especially if Sony decides not to go the same route and continue to allow second hand sell of games. I wouldn't be surprised if the publishers have forced Sony and Microsoft's hand on the second hand game issue.

Also if there is a game I want buying it first hand means the developer gets the money.

This is a common misconception. If the game is being sold second-hand, the devs already got the money. There is literally no point in trying to end "second-hand" game purchases, since the mindset of any consumer purchasing such games will either a) not buy new games anymore or b) wait till they drop in price naturally. In most cases, games that get returned and resold heavily either saturate the market enough for it not to effect them or people stopped buying the game on release, the few who did returned it and the only reason any even buys it is because its a bargain bin item (in which case the devs aren't losing any sales).

The only real change this will make is that less people will buy games, because there are less points of access. I'm sure a lot of us who played the Gears series, or even the Metal Gear (or any other long running, highly popular franchise) purchased the first or second game used to try it out, liked it and bought into the rest. Without "second hand" games, that won't happen (at least not short of pirating it, which is another discussion altogether).

1 person buys the game brand new, 3 people it the game at bargain bin, the developer made money from 4 sales

1 person buys the game, sells it back to GameStop, GameStop resells it to another person, repeat three times. The developer made money from 1 sale, GameStop made money from 4 sales, and since the traders bought new games there with the credit, they actually made money from 8 sales.

It's not a misconception. Games are not like a carton of milk which is empty after you used it, when you pass on a game it's still 100% the same, unlike a used car which is a "used" car.

In other words, Sony's dev. tools/environment suck...again.

Where does it say that?

If anything Microsofts dev tools are going to suck because Microsoft wants developers to use MS libs for developing which means overheads. With Sony developers can do what they want which means being able to super optimise their games and squeeze every last ounce of power out of the hardware they can.

It's not a misconception. Games are not like a carton of milk which is empty after you used it, when you pass on a game it's still 100% the same, unlike a used car which is a "used" car.

Why do developers think they are entitled to a cut of the money every time the game resells?

I don't care if a game is 100% the same, and in many cases its not such as included DLC and online passes that get used and not transferred, developers got their cut when the game sold. Instead of screwing the consumer why not go after these second hand shops.

Movie studios don't get a cut from second hand movie sales, publishers don't get a cut from second hand book sales, artists don't get a cut from second hand music cd sales, all these are 100% the same as they were new.

No second hand market?

I STRONGLY doubt it.

I would be strongly surprised if they did such a thing. People would jump ship in a heartbeat, and/or they would find a way to hack the Xbox in order to play games. Microsoft would bend in the end.

already rumored though: http://www.techspot....tion-codes.html

second hand market is large, and lot of money swirling on it but none of that money are within companies reaches,

of course companies would loves if that "Second Hand" needs are transformed into "First Hand" sales,

just how much profit they could gain that way?

Companies envying the second hand market is not new, example:

Bruce Willis vs Apple co. : why can't i transfer my legal iTune purchaces to my beloved daughter?

Supap Kirtsaeng vs John Wiley & Sons : sued for "copyright" ingfringment for re-selling legaly obtained textbooks.

So, yeah U.S companies coveting the imaginary profits that they may get if all those "Second Hand" sales were actually companies's "First Hand" sales.

and dont' forget to use the new XBOX you must agree to not filing any Class Action Law Suit against Microsoft. (pending in europe until MS 'contributes' significant sum of money to EU govements)

therefore you can't form a class-action suing Microsoft for fair-use infringment.

Why do developers think they are entitled to a cut of the money every time the game resells?

I don't care if a game is 100% the same, and in many cases its not such as included DLC and online passes that get used and not transferred, developers got their cut when the game sold. Instead of screwing the consumer why not go after these second hand shops.

Movie studios don't get a cut from second hand movie sales, publishers don't get a cut from second hand book sales, artists don't get a cut from second hand music cd sales, all these are 100% the same as they were new.

BEcause int he super extreme millions of people could play a single copy. They make a product and you play it, they deserve the money for it, especially when bargain bin costs the same or barely more than buying a used copy which only goes to fill the pockets of gamespot and similar.

why do you want t give money to gamespot and not the actual developers? that's the questions.

Also the DLC is a completely separate issue, they're not part of the cost of developing the game, you pay for the DLC for the cost of the DLC. it's like saying buying PEZ packs pays for the PEZ dispenser..

Also movies are different and not comparable, firstly most movies make all their money back on cinema. secondly movies are not traded as much as games since most people today buy movies for collecting, those who just want to watch the movie, they rent it or stream it. which, guess what, brings money back to the company who made it.

I do wonder if we'll see better support for special rent versions of games in the next generation though, since gamefly and oneplays(in europe/scandinavia) and such services offer a nice extra revenue for the developers.

Not going to happen.

Also in several EU countries (and not to long entire EU) You are by law allowed to sell any property you buy.

The maker can in no way make the product unuseable just because someone buys it second hand.

So MS risking its european market? haha no, they have enough legals running around.

That the console requires an Always on connection seems plausible though. MS its market is focussed in internet rich area's. I for one know noone with a PS3, Xbox or Wii that has no internet connection (on the other hand, i know really few people that dont have internet, even homeless people have internet :/)

Actually, you can still resell the disk, but the license to use it is bound to you. just like your digital purchases.

If they do this it is I suspect because

1. the publishers forced their hand and both consoles will have it, or they have said that IF MS does this, they will only release their games on their platform untill Sony does the same. in which case MS did the coup of the century.

2. physical and digital purchases will be combined, you buy a physical disc and get a code, the code binds the game to you, and you know own the right to use it, and can download it whenever you want if you lose the disk, and digital downloads will be released at the same time as discs. in this case they may have two type of games, digital/physical ones that binds to you, and regular physical copies.

If they do the whole license tie to your account then they should also let you deactivate it if you want to resell it. Then when the next guy gets it and runs it they'll have to get a new code for a price. That way the developer doesn't lose out on the second hand sale. If this is how it goes down it's really no different from having to buy a pass to play your copy online that many developers have put into place.

What an sham scam.

The Devs have already gotten their money from the initial sale and the back end to support the multiplayer is factored in to that cost. The buyer could spend 24x7 for 10 years playing the game. It makes no difference whether its the initial buyer or a second have buyer- the longevity of the game support is still the same.

How is gaming improving profit margins, when I can buy brand new AAA games today for half the cost of what a SNES games cost back in the day, add in inflation and the price difference is more than that. and the cost of development, the SNES games where developed by 2-10 guys in a garage. modern triple A games cost as much as a high budget movie to make.

By improving profit margins I mean they only offer DRM solutions to the table, and faster hardware to handle the DRM and growth of lazy coders/bloatware, and strong-arming a cut of every game sales with revocation of resale value by enacting an unlock code. I don't hear anything about revolutionary gaming, amazing features, or anything that is a selling feature so far above and beyond whats capable on the 360. Its very likely ALL 360 support will be dropped (live servers offline as well) as soon as the new unit is launched - thus forcing the console upon us just like with the original xbox. Im sure the 360->next xbox ports will play amazing though.. Im just not buying it.

SNES pricing wasn't good but there wasn't market saturation either. ROI was unknown as it was an untouched market. Now you can go to college to specialize in only adding shadows to 3D elements. Add in super fast computers and robust SDK's - employing thousands of folks to develop don't mean they ALL do it at once. Each one may spend a couple hours working on a single title opposed to months previous with a small team completing it.

BEcause int he super extreme millions of people could play a single copy. They make a product and you play it, they deserve the money for it, especially when bargain bin costs the same or barely more than buying a used copy which only goes to fill the pockets of gamespot and similar.

Yeah, cause everyone is willing to wait in line for one freaking copy to save $5-$20 off the retail price. Your worst case scenario is not a realistic one. In reality the vast majority of people who exclusively buy used games will not purchase new games, in which case the developer isn't losing anything. Instead they are getting their foot in the door with the consumer, hence the possibility of a repeat customer on their next release (the most important thing any salesmen would want).

why do you want t give money to gamespot and not the actual developers? that's the questions.

Its not our fault that the developers spend more money than movie studios and have to nickel and dime us to get a profit. And this is coming from someone who almost never buys used games.

Also the DLC is a completely separate issue, they're not part of the cost of developing the game, you pay for the DLC for the cost of the DLC. it's like saying buying PEZ packs pays for the PEZ dispenser..

Repeatedly unfinished content has be released after the game and marked up in price despite being budgeted for the original development process. Is that really fair?

Also movies are different and not comparable, firstly most movies make all their money back on cinema. secondly movies are not traded as much as games since most people today buy movies for collecting, those who just want to watch the movie, they rent it or stream it. which, guess what, brings money back to the company who made it.

And most games make their money on release, where there are no used copies available. And many gamers buy games to collect them, in fact I have 5 copies of Halo CE and 3 copies of Chromehounds.

The only way for you to possibly see reselling of games as an actual financial problem for developers/publishers is for it to be considered in the worst possible scenario. And that's that around a 1000 people buy the game, and that 1000 copies is redistributed among the rest of the world. This will never be the case, ever. If someone likes a game, studio or publisher they are highly more likely to purchase into it upon release, which means (as I said before) that used games can get a foot into the door for many developers and bring repeat business. Would you rather someone never buy a game from you because they are a) not sure about it and b) don't want to fork over $60? Or, would you rather lose out on a $60 sale for them to buy all your releases from then on day 1? Perhaps lose $60 (which you aren't actually losing, you just aren't making it) so that you can make $60 * X number of subsequent releases?

Business wise, I'd want the latter. Developer wise, same thing.

This is why I just don't understand the games industrie's beef with resale.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • When I think about a network, there are really two aspects, the hardware and the wiring. So here is what I would do for both. Wiring: Use Cat6A for the patch panel and all structured cables (cables installed in walls). Run plenty of Wireless Access Point (WAP) cables, as a general rule, assume a signal can only pass through 2-3 walls and can't pass through a floor (that is conservative, but trust me on this if you want strong WiFi)  Cat6 patch cables are fine for now if you don't plan to run 10gig, those are easy to replace later if needed. Run OS2 single-mode fiber to anywhere you think you may have a server or sub-switch. (yes, single-mode for everything on a small network, don't mess with multimode unless you have entire racks of servers and that minor module cost and power savings will matter). If you really want to future proof, also run fiber to any high density WAP locations, it is likely that WiFi 8 WAPs will push the limits of 10g. Run 6-12 pairs of single-mode fiber between your MDF and the building's MDF, even if you only need 1 or 2 pairs now, those extra pairs will pay off down the road. Hardware: (its easy to say "get all the features incase you need them", so instead of futureproofing, I am going to take approach of suggesting areas worth investing in, and areas you can save money). Don't overspend thinking you need every feature on every port. You don't need 10g on every port, you don't need PoE on every port. Don't overspend on redundancy either, unless you are ready to buy two of everything, don't waste money buying two of some things and not others. Dual power supplies are worthwhile, but probably not HA or multi-path redundancy.  Get 1 "distribution layer" switch that your router/firewall will connect to, your access layer switches. This should be a 10g switch with a combination of copper and SPF ports and should be a fully managed switch. Given that you said it is a small network, I suggest also using that distribution layer switch for servers and WAPs, meaning it will need PoE. Speaking of wireless, get good professional tri-band WAPs, and either turn on the band stirring options, or limit 2.4 to an IoT only SSID. This will provide a solid WiFi capable nearly everything but the highest of bandwidth clients...you could even consider skipping wiring workstations depending on usage. Access layer switch for workstations and printers can be cheaper switches, 2.5g is a good sweet spot between price and future proofing, but even 1g is fine for most individual clients (the kind that could probably be fine on WiFi). You can consider saving a little on access layer switches by only getting 1 PoE switch for whatever needs it (remember your WAPs are connecting to the distribution switch, not here), and non-PoE for your workstations, because desk phones are falling out of favor. You can also save money here by not buying managed switches if you don't need them--but really do some soul searching there, if you go this route, then anything that isn't on your workstation VLAN would either need to be connected to the distribution switch, or its own switch. Also, don't feel like you need a fancy fabric stacking switches for your access layer, that is the point of the higher-end distribution layer, to remove the need for things like that at this level. Home Hardware: I'm realizing the above assumed an office setting, if this if for your house and home lab then the above still applies, but you'll probably want everything managed and PoE, just because, but you probably also don't need multiple access layer switches. if your total port count is below 24, just skip separating distribution layer and access layer and just get one nice switch with the features you want. For home use, don't worry about home running every device to the main switch, there is nothing wrong with running sub-switches for your media areas and office, those essentially become your access layer, just look for sub-switches with a 10g uplink so sharing bandwidth isn't an issue.
    • Google Meet brings Gemini note-taking to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers by Karthik Mudaliar Google's Gemini-powered "Take notes for me" feature inside Google Meet is now available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. The features work on Google Meet for web as well as on mobile, and Google says that subscribers can use it for meetings they host in many supported languages. As the name suggests, "Take notes for me" allows Gemini to listen to a meeting, generate a summary, identify action items, and save the notes as a Google Doc in the user’s Drive. After the meeting, the organizer receives an email recap with the summary and action items, while the notes can also be attached to the related Calendar event depending on the meeting setup and sharing settings. The feature isn't automatically turned on for everyone, though. Google says that all meeting participants are notified when note-taking is turned on, and users can start it from the pencil icon in Meet or enable it for future calls through Meet’s meeting records settings. For work or school accounts, administrators can also control whether the feature is available and may require explicit participant consent for note-taking, recording, or transcription features. The feature first launched back in 2024, when it was available just for selected Workspace users. Over the years, Google added refinements and more options, including the ability to enable it when scheduling meetings via Google Calendar. Google's support docs say that the feature currently supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, but only one language at a time. Meetings with multiple spoken languages are not currently supported, and Google recommends using the tool for meetings between 15 minutes and eight hours. The new feature makes Google Meet closer to its rivals that have AI tools already built in. Microsoft Teams has recently started offering Copilot and intelligent recap features that summarize meetings, surface highlights, and help with follow-ups, while Zoom’s AI Companion can also generate meeting summaries from desktop and mobile meetings.
    • GnuCash 5.16 by Razvan Serea GnuCash is a personal and small business finance application, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. It’s designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible. GnuCash allows you to track your income and expenses, reconcile bank accounts, monitor stock portfolios and manage your small business finances. It is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. GnuCash can keep track of your personal finances in as much detail as you prefer. If you are just starting out, use GnuCash to keep track of your checkbook. You may then decide to track cash as well as credit card purchases to better determine where your money is being spent. When you start investing, you can use GnuCash to help monitor your portfolio. Buying a vehicle or a home? GnuCash will help you plan the investment and track loan payments. If your financial records span the globe, GnuCash provides all the multiple-currency support you need. Between 5.15 and 5.16, the following bugfixes were accomplished: Bug 421610 - RFE: Include logical dates for View->Filter by "date range"The Select Range section of the Date tab of the register's Filter By dialog box is changed to provide relative, specific date, or days ago options for the start and end of the filter range. The Show number of days item label is changed to Show from days ago to better reflect what it does. Bug 436105 - esc key not working as expected in register: Enable the escape key to cancel a field edit. Bug 797384 - Gnucash doesn't handle commodity prices with big numerator/denominator properly. Bug 798004 - Next gen UI for stock transactions Bug 799314 - Add "enter now" option in scheduled transaction editor. tab to allow users to select the scheduled transactions to be included in a “Since Last Run…” window. If there are no instances of a selected transaction triggered by today’s date, the next instance is triggered. Bug 799751 - autocomplete crash Bug 799759 - Users can't Enable entries via Checkboxes on Scheduled Transactions PageAllow the Enabled box in the list of scheduled transactions to be operated instead of having to open the transaction editor dialog and change the Enabled checkbox. Also added use of the Name column as the secondary column sort for all the other columns. Bug 799762 - Poor handling of cases where hidden/placeholder accounts are used in the account register Bug 799766 - Double line preference not respected in search register Bug 799767 - POST /accounts in bindings/python/example_scripts/rest-api is broken Bug 799777 - `xaccSplitSetParent`: reparenting a committed split silently drops its KVP slots (online_id, cap-gains links) Other changes & improvements: Numeric values may now be selected to copy in the Accounts page. Add new Finance::Quote source Finnhub.io: Free API key (personal/non-professional use) available at https://finnhub.io. Set FINNHUB_API_KEY environment variable to API key to use this source. As of June 2026, free tier API limit is 60 API calls/minute. The Investment Lots report has new optional columns for Computed Annual Growth Rate. Python Bindings: Improved translation of primary object (Account, Transaction, Split, etc.) so that they can be treated as normal Python objects. This is accomplished with SWIG magic so no existing code is obsoleted. Python Bindings: Better conversion of GLists to Python lists. Python Bindings: Destroy the QofSession in the Python Session dtor to prevent leaving the database locked. [engine] Add first-class online_id accessors for Split and Account and make them available to Python bindings, removing the unused Transaction online_id property. Improve C++ implementation of QofBook. Correct the Doxygen doc for qof_instance_get/set_kvp. [gnc-log-replay.cpp] fix incorrect guid dump Add some Boost library requirements needed by libgnucash-guile to CMakeLists.txt so that missing feature will fail at configure time. Use Compile-time Regular Expressions instead of std::regex in gnc-filepath-utils.cpp and instead of boost::regex in the CSV importer, with the CTRE v3.11.1 header added to borrowed [gnc-filepath-utils.cpp] null check char* arguments Add ChartJS licenses. Removed AEX from list of commodities. euronext.com is now using JS based anti-webscraping. [report-core] always offer options summary in reports. This is useful to debug reports. The Add options summary option is removed because it's no longer optional. Remove remaining obsolete IMContext from sheet Fix blurry text in HiDPI offscreen-rendered widgets Add port field to database connection dialog: The convention of appending the port number after the host isn't obvious. When editing a split in the register treat the account as being changed only if it isn't the one selected before editing instead of if the user performed an edit Return immediately from qof_book_destroy if hash_of_collections is null. If qof_book_destroy is called on a QofBook* freshly created with qof_book_new (usually because it was used to create a session that now must be destroyed) it would try to empty the non-existent hash tables, crashing. Clean up Flathub metadata to solve warnings at flatpak build time. Be consistent in naming GncPluginPage and GncPluginPageRegister HTML: Remove unimplemented function declarations. [gnc-html.cpp] remove unused buggy string conversion functions Convert libgnc-html to C++ Apply -Wall -Werr -Wmissing-prototypes to C++ compilation on Windows and fix the resulting errors. New and Updated Translations: Arabic, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, German, Finnish, Hungarian, Korean, Norwegian-Bokmal, Spanish Download: GnuCash 5.16 | 176.0 MB (Open Source) Links: GnuCash Home page | Other Operating Systems | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Microsoft finally launches WSL Containers in public preview by David Uzondu Microsoft has announced that WSL containers, a feature that allows developers to run Linux containers natively inside Windows without the need for Docker Desktop, is now available in public preview several weeks after Microsoft previewed it at Build 2026. To use the new container feature, you first have to install the latest pre-release version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux by running a quick update command in your terminal: wsl --update --pre-release After installing, you'd get access to the new Linux container CLI (wslc.exe) and the programmable API. Microsoft said that the CLI has a "familiar format" that matches the toolsets developers already use every day. If you know standard Docker commands, your muscle memory will translate directly to wslc.exe, which even features a built-in alias called container.exe. You can quickly run a full Ubuntu KDE desktop container by exposing ports, or pass your graphics card straight into a machine learning environment to run PyTorch workloads. Passing the --gpus all flag inside the run command instantly links your hardware. Image via Microsoft As for the API, developers can now embed Linux container operations directly inside native Windows applications without exposing the command line to users. The team integrated the API directly into MSBuild and CMake, so developers can define container steps directly in project files. Apart from bringing the CLI and API into public preview, Microsoft also said that it's working on a new default file system called virtiofs to speed up file transfer rates between Windows and Linux. Microsoft also introduced an experimental networking mode named consomme, which resolves compatibility issues with corporate VPNs by routing Linux network traffic straight through Windows. One thing to note about WSL containers is that they don't run in your standard WSL distributions; instead, every application and CLI session spawns its own lightweight Hyper-V utility VM in the background. This basically reduces the chances of one app snooping on the container of another app.
    • Google reportedly limited Meta's Gemini access over limited AI compute by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly limiting Meta's use of its Gemini AI models after Meta tried buying more computing capacity than even Google could supply. According to the Financial Times, Google told Meta in March that it could not provide the full Gemini capacity that Meta had requested. This shortfall even disrupted and delayed some of Meta's internal projects. Due to this, Meta even told its employees internally to use AI tokens more efficiently. Meta wasn't the only one to get hit by this sudden refusal by Google; even other customers were affected. But Meta was hit harder because of its unusually high demand for Google's models. The move from Google makes it evident that companies all over are in limited supply of both infrastructure and compute. Alphabet said in April that Google Cloud revenue grew 63% year-over-year to $20 billion in the first quarter, helped by enterprise AI infrastructure and AI solutions. In pursuit of more compute, Meta had earlier signed a multi-billion-dollar AWS agreement as well as a large AMD GPU deal for AI data centers. But the crunch would be short-lived as both Meta and Google have also ramped up infrastructure investments heavily. Meta said in November that it was committing more than $600 billion in the U.S. by 2028 for AI technology, infrastructure, and workforce expansion. In the first quarter of this year, Meta also raised its expected capital expenditure for 2026 to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, citing higher component pricing and additional data center costs for future capacity. However, this doesn't make the company immune to the current dependence on outside suppliers. Meta has also spent many years promoting Llama as an open-weight alternative to closed models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. But if the reported reliance on Google's Gemini models is severe enough for internal work to get impacted, then it looks like even frontier labs and Big Tech aren't fully self-sufficient. Source: Financial Times
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      BA the Curmudgeon earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      KMilenkoski1202 earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      533
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      269
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      150
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      98
    5. 5
      macoman
      66
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!