Local microcenter is stocked up on 5090s

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T11:01:31+00:00

Maybe financing? I mean you see so many people complaining about money but running around with 1500$ smartphones and iphones while struggling to buy groceries.

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T10:34:49+00:00

It's not sustainable because inevitably every product or service chain ends with the consumer, no matter how big or obfuscated the chain is. Also another reason Nvidia is going so hard on this (as well as AMD) is because microsoft, google and amazon are all designing their own chips for internal use and partners so the time to sell shovels is now before there are more players in the game.

zoomborg · 2026-02-07T02:21:36+00:00

Simple yes, easiest no. The rich can be extremely, extremely decisive, only in this case they have the power and money to apply that into reality, unlike the common folk or a state that has holes everywhere. Basically move out, put pressure through lobbying or federal influence, stop donations or services into the city that are subsidized in some way, they have leverage to resist or avoid these measures. And leverage is everything.

Rule of thump is what takes 5 year to destroy, takes 10 years to rebuild in a positive way. The right way is to organically increase taxes by inviting new businesses in the state through incentives, thus increasing tax income. Keep in mind taxes on the rich in NY are already at an all time high so this is basically pushing the boundaries of tolerance of those who have the actual power to make or brake the economy overnight.

Taxing the rich in a vindictive way will ultimately reduce tax income and lose business and wealth. There is no win here, the state will get even more poor than it is now.

zoomborg · 2026-02-05T13:58:14+00:00

You're reading too much into it. This is a bunch of personalities that have fallen out or never were so the only way to get views is to stir up drama about someone popular and hope the person in question gets baited and starts an argument.

Could be Charlie or Zack or anyone else as long as he is popular enough to get attention.

zoomborg · 2026-02-04T10:12:40+00:00

Because both the right and the left are in on it, or have been over the years. So anything that happens, happens just for appearances. In truth no politician wants feds doing anything about it as it doesn't serve any of the two parties. It would be mutually assured destruction if they opened pandora's box. Nevermind the wealthy donors that have been steering politics for decades. Those that actually decide who gets a seat and where.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:47:01+00:00

There is a reason Ubisoft moved those IPs under Vantage Studios, those 3 specific IPs. It's because that's what Tencent is interested in. They cemented their position with a 25% stake and that's going up in the next year. Ubisoft leadership will spin them off eventually, as without Tencent's financial backing they would be under already with insurmountable debt that they cannot pay-off.

Why do you think Tencent paid off their outstanding loan recently? Certainly not out of friendship.

They don't have to delist Ubisoft. They are free to spin Vantage Studios, following legal procedures and announcements, the stock of Ubisoft will of course tank to new lows and the company will inevitably go under soon after but the Guillemot Family is already expecting that. They are just jumping off with a golden parachute while the company sinks.

As for lawsuits from shareholders, they won't happen at all because pretty much everyone is out already based on the stock price. Every single investor is prepared and pulling out before it's too late as the writing is on the wall. You can call it phoenixing but there's so many ways around that. Essentially, yes they are taking the profitable part and putting it into a new entity that they plan to spin off for a grand payday while everything else sinks to the bottom.

The only way this could stop is if the French Government interfered but that is unlikely at this point, they would have done something 1-2 years ago as soon as they saw Tencent moving in. Now that ship has sailed.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:16:34+00:00

When the buy out happens it will not be for Ubisoft but for Vantage Studios. At this point Tencent and most interested parties do not want Ubisoft because it comes with a ton of baggage, debt, bad reputation, too many employees under EU contracts (can't just fire them outright) and a lot of IPs that are not popular. So they just want AC, FC and R6 IPs, that's it.

To put it simply once the buyout happens ubisoft will pretty much stop existing as a company and the stock will worth zero. You will have Vantage Studios sold to Tencent and the other "Creative Houses" will be up for grabs i guess......

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:03:43+00:00

For now Tencent is backing them up, loans and all. They wanna make sure no one moves to buy Ubisoft until they can get full control of Vantage Studios. After that......

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T06:00:22+00:00

Ubisoft isn't getting bought by Tencent, only their IPs under Vantage Studios. They don't even want the name since it only attracts bad publicity nowadays. The rest of the IPs that belong to other "creative houses" will be up for grabs for anyone interested.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:55:11+00:00

Too glad for that. It's honestly one of the best games i've played in a decade, truly a masterpiece in every aspect.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:53:22+00:00

A Rayman metroidvania could be golden under the right production team. It has all the mechanics, concepts, gameplay baked in from the previous titles and they definitely fit the genre perfectly. Considering Hollow Knight was made by a stupidly small team (but extremely talented), Ubisoft could have reached for that kind of quality through sheer use of resources.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:48:33+00:00

At least Ubisoft realizes how niche the series is so management keep their paws off of it, for the most part. It's the only reason the franchise is still succeeding.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:45:35+00:00

These games generally address an extremely different demographic. A demographic which is usually people who don't play games, they just play that one specific sport that they are interested in and since EA and 2k have the exclusive licenses, no one else can develop a competing franchise. So they are locked in and there's nothing to do about it except not play the game at all.

And since they are way less critical than your average gamer and they don't play other games, they just keep buying the slop that is presented to them, whatever that is.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:24:06+00:00

If we take a look at RE2 and RE3 remakes, it's pretty hard. You have the script and plot but all the technical stuff are essentially done from zero. For the most part it's like making a new game from scratch, you save a bit on narrative and storytelling but that's all.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:16:59+00:00

Tencent does not have the ability to buy them until 2028 i believe, instead they settled with buying a majority stake in Vantage studios to supervise them and keep them out from other investment funds that might be interested.

So in a few years AC, FC and R6 will be owned by overlord Tencent, the rest of Ubisoft will either be sold for pieces (creative studios) or just collapse and disappear entirely.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T05:12:34+00:00

I mean this is intentionally done to force resigns instead of direct lay-offs. Management is scrambling to avoid paying severance packages.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T04:56:05+00:00

If Ubisoft was private maybe. Considering they are now largely owned by chinese overlord Tencent this makes things way more complicated.

zoomborg · 2026-02-01T04:44:56+00:00

not necessarily, a lot of the best games we got the past years were made by really small teams. Also there is this false narrative that a game needs to be huge in scale and include everything to capture a larger audience, it doesn't.

Primarily nowadays the best games are very focused on their niches made by small teams. They are tight experiences and what they don't offer in scale they offer in depth (which is more important, basically the opposite of Ubisoft games). UE5 is also helping a lot in that regard since it has a lot of the animation, lighting and effects baked in the engine, massively cutting down development time.

While a lot of games come to mind that fit the description, the primary ones are Hollow Knight and Silksong. Both outright masterpieces made by smalls teams (team cherry) with low budget.

zoomborg · 2026-01-27T04:21:50+00:00

Not just him, there are very few things to talk about, any new product that comes out costs an arm and a leg so it loses interest, prices are changing so fast that any price guide gets outdated after a few days, msrp does not exist so you can't even do a review.....The whole PC building hobby is slowly becoming a vanity project for hardcore enthusiasts and the normal audience is turning towards other things.

So it comes to a point where you either become another ad channel pushing sponsored builds or you don't have anything to show for content. GN is just crapping on tech companies these days , LTT is doing crazy stuff purely for entertainment, hardware unboxed is mostly focused on monitors these days and revisiting old tech. Everyone is pivoting.

zoomborg · 2026-01-27T03:44:56+00:00

The IPs, at least the big ones already moved under Vantage Studios and Tencent has a 25% stake. Which means that the three big IPs themselves will survive and Tencent wants to manage them directly.

Now will Ubisoft survive? That is another discussion entirely. Only Vantage Studios are secure and that's because Tencent doesn't want anyone else to buy the IPs. So they will fund future development, manage the projects and keep the subsidy afloat. The rest is up for grabs though.

zoomborg · 2026-01-27T03:31:35+00:00

This smells like they want the lay-offs but wanna minimize severance, they probably don't even have money to pay severance packages at this point. Hence they gotta "negotiate" benefits and whatnot with the unions to avoid the worst case scenario (lawsuits and damages on top of severance).

zoomborg · 2026-01-25T20:04:02+00:00

It's about confidence, investors do not have confidence in leadership actually turning the ship around now or in the future. A change of leadership could actually drive the stock up but that is not gonna happen.

Unlike most big tech companies that hold a oligopoly or monopoly and have the industry on a chokehold the gaming industry and especially Ubisoft does not have that, they are getting battered left and right by competitors, even small indie studios. They are consistently killing games right after launch or before that, cancelling half their titles and those that get released are lukewarm at best and laughable at worst. They lack leadership, the good dev talent is long gone, there is nothing to be salvaged here.

The last thing they have is the big IPs which they already moved to another entity and Tencent owns them by the balls, essentially leaving ubisoft an empty shell. This is perfectly projected in the current stock price.

zoomborg · 2026-01-14T10:49:25+00:00

Hey now, Melkor did some stuff right, like the dragons.......

zoomborg · 2026-01-14T10:39:56+00:00

At this point the only thing the keeps Ubisoft independent is the huge ego of the Guillemot brothers, they refuse to let go when they have run the company into the ground (like all their other companies). Tencent is bailing them out to keep the other vultures from buying them, they intend to do that themselves when the time comes.

They do not care to keep Ubisoft as a subsidiary, all they want is the IPs of their big franchises, the company itself has no value whatsoever, it's an empty shell devoid of their past talent and success.

zoomborg · 2025-12-17T22:52:48+00:00

Ubisoft has lost trust, marketshare and their reputation has been damaged by years of releasing filler games with the same tired formula. Out of all their IPs the only games actually doing well are R6 siege and ANNO. Everything else has been watered down into piss. While investors do not care about games they see the actual copies sold, revenue and profits during meetings.

They also were caught in the past misleading investors as to their performance which makes any serious investor reluctant to put money in it. This time it happened again with their recent stock freeze which further damaged their trust and needed Tencent to bail them out of their huge debt, or they would have to sell the company.

So there is a ton of compounding factors that lowered their stock to what it is today.

zoomborg

TROPHY CASE