It's a Good News/Bad News Kind of Thing

This week has really turned out to be a mixed bag for me.  I've basically finished playing through Two Point Museum (apparently you can just keep playing your museums forever and gain more stars--I still haven't discovered/unlocked all the exploration locations, so that's a bit of a reason to keep playing) and have been trying to puzzle out what to play next.  Weirdly, I've gone back to an oldie that I felt compelled to play--SteamWorld Dig.  Here's the good/bad that I'm feeling at the moment.

(The above video from Paul's Hardware lays out the GPU pricing insanity)

Let's start with the bad news and just get it out of the way.  I've been hoping and planning to build a new PC this summer and it is shaping up to be one of the absolutely worst times for a couple of reasons.  The first reason is the GPU nonsense that is currently happening.  Both NVIDIA and AMD released new generations of GPU's--you would think that would be great news; new, faster, better hardware!  Unfortunately actually getting your hands on one of these GPU's--or, even worse, one of the last gen GPU's--is an absolute crapshoot.  Both NVIDIA and AMD releases were immediately sold out (and ridiculously scalped) and stock has been very meager with little news about when to expect it to start rebounding.  So why not just buy a last gen CPU?  In anticipation of the new gen, they stopped producing the last gen and people started grabbing up all of those GPU's too.  As a result, the prices on older GPU's is absolutely insane--you're talking a 125% plus markup over MSRP on some GPU models!  Plus, with the announcement of new tariffs (including a 34% increase on the already 20% tariffs on China) it means that this might be the most expensive time to build a new PC.  Maybe I'll just have to keep my 6 year old PC stringing along...this means I'm definitely not going to be playing anything new, but that's okay.

It's always nice to end on a good note, so now for the good stuff.  On April 10th, a new DLC for Dave the Diver is releasing!  It's a crossover story (which they seem to be doing a lot of...and I don't hate it!) with Yakuza and features characters from the series.  I'm not familiar with Yakuza, but I do love me some Dave, so I'm definitely looking forward to scooping it up and spending some more time exploring the Blue Hole with Dave and crew.

At least it's spring and the weather is starting to improve.  Happy gaming (and maybe some outside time) to everyone!