Hammer&Ravens

This has been a good thread but there are some recurring themes that are surface level at best. One is "limiting hardware will lead to more optimization by devs!". People chant this like it matters but here's why it probably doesn't. Time and money are a thing. Custom engines are not a thing in most AAA. Few AAA teams have the time/money/maybe even ability to alter something like Unreal (or Unity etc) under the hood, which is why they license to begin with. So this fantasy that slowing hardware will lead to a renaissance of optimization phase is likely unfounded. Yes, things like AI may help a ton here, but again, most teams likely are not going to be doing a lot of under the hood work on Unreal and instead would wait for Epic to roll out performance boosts. You're dealing with games that cost low 9 figures+ to create and market. Most people are going to lean on licensed tech or dlss or whatever things hardware vendors open up for them. Maybe with the rise of AI we see more and more AAA teams branching out to write their own more optimized (and less generalized) engines, but I would not bet on that. At all. Just how it is. In general. Don't @ me with exceptions.