More from RAM price hikes: the latest on the global memory shortage
Sony sold 1.6 million PlayStation 5 consoles, about a third fewer than last year at this time, and says it has plenty of memory for the foreseeable future:
Regarding the impact of memory market conditions on PlayStation 5 hardware, we have secured the quantity of memory necessary to meet our projected sales volume for FY26, and there is no change to our plan for hardware profitability for FY26 to remain similar to FY25.
In other words, there shouldn’t be any major PS5 restock panics or severe manufacturing shutdowns leading into big game launches (like GTA VI), but price increases are always on the table to maintain profitability.
Apple has reportedly been seeking permission to buy memory from CXMT, a blacklisted Chinese supplier.
“We urge Apple to abandon any effort to incorporate memory from CXMT, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC), or any other Chinese state-backed supplier into any of its products,” the Senators wrote in a letter to CEO Tim Cook.
[U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York]
“We don’t have the same problems,” Logitech’s new gaming boss Robin Piispanen tells me during our wide-ranging chat, when I ask if PC builders are delaying peripheral purchases like other parts of their build due to RAM prices. In fact, Logitech’s gaming sales are up 12 percent YoY and 21 percent sequentially in today’s Q1 earnings.
But other chips might leave a dent:
in late June 2026, a serious incident in the manufacturing facilities of one of Logitech’s semiconductor suppliers resulted in its temporary closure, which is likely to impact the Company’s ability to effectively meet future demand. The Company is working on multiple mitigation plans.
Tech reviews are tricky beasts at the best of times. But things get a lot trickier when products like the Framework Laptop 13 Pro jump by $800 before they ever launch. When everything is expensive — and continually rising higher — what counts as good value?
yslee:
RAMageddon is just making these reviews impossible, no? It’s hard to say what’s good when the price is so out of whack.
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The Framework Laptop 13 Pro has it all. But RAMageddon spiked its price.
Chipmaker Changxin Technology Group is now the most valuable China-listed company after IPO’ing this morning, rising nearly 500 percent on speculation that RAMageddon will drive demand for its memory chips in a market dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. Tim Cook’s said to have asked for an exception to use CXMT’s chips in Apple products sold in China to keep costs down.
Another byproduct of Framework’s new RAM pricing is that preorders for the Ultra X7 358H version of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro jumped from $2,099 to $2,899. Framework’s announcement didn’t specify this config, but the Wayback Machine shows it.
People who got their 32GB preorders bumped down to 16GB also have to pay more if they want to maintain 32GB from Framework, or source their LPCAMM2 RAM elsewhere.
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PC Gamer spotted a listing for the Next 2 on Ayaneo’s website with a top configuration priced at $5,299. The same configuration, with 128GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, was already pricey at $4,299 earlier this year, before Ayaneo suspended preorders, saying the handheld was “unsustainable” due to skyrocketing RAM costs.
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The new entry-level Surface Laptop 13-inch is last year’s same great hardware with less memory and a higher price.
After nine straight quarters of growth, worldwide PC shipments dropped by 4.9 percent year-over-year, according to IDC. The research firm places the blame for the decline squarely on the memory chip shortage driven by the AI arms race.
Omida reports that memory costs can make up more than half the cost of low-end phones. That’s leading to a gradual retreat from the low-end market, as low-end products are “already becoming unprofitable and face a high risk of weakening demand as retail price continues to rise.”
Mikhail Klimentov interviewed Schreier about the channel, where Schreier sits in a room and explains things about video games. “A rule that I set for myself is that I will not do any video that takes me more than 30 minutes to do in any way,” says Schreier.
The oldest video on Schreier’s channel was posted on May 27th, and he already has more than 100,000 subscribers.
[ReaderGrev]
“PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to their lowest May total since May 2000, while Xbox hardware unit sales were the lowest ever recorded for a May month,” says Circana analyst Mat Piscatella.
The PlayStation figures are probably explained by the recently-hiked prices. With Xbox prices going up soon, sales might continue to be grim.
