The company shut down the Chinese version of its app that was operated by Tencent in early 2022, but Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki says that the company is still working on something for the Chinese market.
The idea would be that Roblox can “literally print a copy of Roblox in China and bring it to market there” and that Roblox would have less and less data going back and forth between the US and China.
David Baszucki, Roblox’s co-founder and CEO, mentioned that while physical shopping is “not yet really announced or promised,” it could be something that brands do within Roblox at some point. But it’s on the roadmap — the company included a goal about physical shopping in its big predictions for the next five years of the company.
The platform is hugely popular with kids, but the company is making a huge push into attracting older players, too. According to David Baszucki, Roblox’s co-founder and CEO, the growth is good enough (33 percent year-over-year with the 17-24 year-old demographic) that the company is ok not saying that they’re trying to age up.
I asked Su if she’s worried about Apple’s recent push to prove that its devices and M series chips are good for triple-A gaming. I get the sense she’s not.
“We’re gonna continue to push the envelope on the highest performing PCs and consoles’ chips, and I think we’re gonna be pretty good,” she added.
(I recommend reading the IGN interview where Apple made that claim, by the way. It’s by Verge alum Taylor Lyles!)
That was Su’s response to Nilay asking if it would be possible. Microsoft and AMD are reportedly working together on an in-house AI chip for Microsoft. Su also confirmed that it would be possible to make AMD chips available to Azure customers in an invisible way — but she suggested asking Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott asking that question as well. Fortunately, he’ll be starting Wednesday’s show!
That’s AMD CEO Lisa Su’s take on that Huawei’s 7nm chip, which have raised some questions.
But Su says the company is putting “a tremendous amount of effort to getting the entire supply chain ramped up.”
I asked Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe how long it might be until we get to a truly affordable EV, and he thinks it could happen in a not-to-distant future.
Right now, many EVs are very expensive, and a huge part of the cost is because of the batteries. The company launched its vehicles at the higher end of pricing, and Scaringe says that the company hopes to keep driving down costs over time.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said that the forthcoming switch to NACS will not only mean that Rivians can charge at Tesla’s Supercharger stations, but Teslas can also charge on Rivian’s own charging network. Hadn’t thought about that — nice perk!