Ryzen 5000 Series Selling Out In Minutes

If you were hoping that AMD would be able to meet the crazy demand for tech parts that NVIDIA, Sony, and Microsoft have all gone through lately with their newest processor release you were sorely mistaken. It’s not a huge surprise given the previous 3000 series launch similarly sold through extremely quickly, but the extremely high demand caused by more and more people in the custom PC space, along with potential scalpers, and compounded by supply issues caused by both the coronavirus and the United States government’s tariffs on Chinese imported goods adds up to zero stock in within minutes on many popular online retailers, and some brick and mortar stores being “sold out” before even opening.

I personally hoped to order a 5800x to upgrade my personal rig. By the time I got to Newegg however at 8:10 am CDT, (the CPUs officially went on sale 6:00am pacific or 8:00 my time I was met by the following images.

All sold out within minutes, with the top of the line 5950x being out within a matter of seconds. You’re best bet, if you want to pick up a new Ryzen processor on launch day is a brick and mortar location, but if you’re hoping to do that you had better already be in line as according to the reddit post people have already been in line for days at various Microcenter locations. And even if you are lucky enough to already be in line, if you’re hoping for a 5950x, AMD’s overkill top of the line processor that is just below their rumored next-gen Threadripper chip the stock is extremely limited and not all locations have one. At the time of writing (8:30 am CDT) the local Microcenter which opens at 10:00 am is already listing the 5950 x as sold out.

Again, this location doesn’t open for another hour and half, which means either they were somehow doing sneaky pre-orders (which I haven’t been able to find an option to pre-order the 5800x but maybe I’m just an idiot), or they had no stock to begin with at this location. As with NVIDIA’s Ampere GPUs, supply for all the above listed reasons is just not able to keep up with demand right now. I would urge everyone to avoid paying scummy Scalpers the over double costs for these parts that I’m sure we’ll see on Ebay by the end of the day and remain patient. Availability should get better over time, and the amount of time that takes could theoretically shift depending on political pressures which I guess makes the U.S. Presidential Election relevant even here, but ultimately if you want, or need an upgrade you’ll get one, just not on day one. Also, if this is any indication on what we can expect from AMD’s upcoming Big Navi gpus, if you’re hoping to get one on launch day you had best get in line soon as the 6800 and 6800xt release on November 18th, less than two weeks away.

-Tim

Activision Blizzard Brings In 1.2 Billion Dollars From Microtransactions

It’s no secret that Activision Blizzard is a powerhouse in the gaming world. Financially and otherwise. Their implementation of loot boxes and other microtransactions across many of it’s titles is no secret either. What has become public knowledge via a third quarter earnings report published on October 29th 2020 is just how much money those endeavors bring in. 1.29 BILLION dollars.

Yes from loot boxes, to Hearthstone card packs to various other forms of microtransactions across the stack Activision Blizzard is rolling in dough. In 2019 the company brought in roughly $700 million in revenue, meaning they are up 69% year over year profits, and that the 1.29 billion dollars consists of over half of the company’s 1.9 billion dollar revenue.

A large part of the driving force behind these skyrocketing numbers is the ever popular, and quickly growing Call of Duty user base, in particular Warzone. Warzone sees 111 million active users per month in quarter 3 of 2020. That’s a player base that is roughly 1/3 the population size of the United States of America. This leads to very optimistic expectations internally for the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War set to release on November 13th. Cold War’s 250gb file size will include a War Zone as well, and given the money that’s bringing in that should be no surprise.

-Tim