Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/steam-machines/valve-says-theres-no-end-in-sight-to-the-memory-crisis-and-prices-are-only-going-to-increase-honestly-its-still-getting-worse/

by haunter • 4 days ago

57 33 4 days ago

pcgamer.com

ViktorRay• 4 days ago

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles launched in Fall of 2020.

That’s almost 6 years ago. The PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox should be launching soon. If not this fall then perhaps next fall when it will be 7 years from the launch of the current generation.

How will the memory crisis impact all of this?

Also I find it kind of ironic. In the 2010’s PC gamers would go online all the time and sneer about how consoles were holding back PC gaming. How they could upgrade their PC’s but games were still not unlocking the full potential of their PCs due to having to optimize for the old PS4 and Xbox One hardware.

And now on the same forums PC gamers actually keep talking about how they don’t want Sony and Microsoft to release new hardware. And they talk about how devs should be optimizing for old hardware. So many complaints about Doom The Dark Ages requiring ray tracing and requiring new hardware…. The hardware that Doom the Dark Ages (2025) requires all came out a few years prior. Imagine somebody in 2004 when Half life 2 came out complaining their Half life 1 (1998) hardware didn’t work for that game…but that’s what many gamers online said when their rigs that could play Doom Eternal (2020) couldn’t play Doom the Dark Ages (2025). “How the turn tables” as Michael Scott famously said I guess.

aurareturn3• 3 days ago

Besides the AI shortage, Moore’s Law has ended which means in order to get faster chips, you have to use bigger dies, fancier packaging, more cooling, more power. This increases costs.

A PS6 really doesn’t increase much over the PS5 even without the AI shortage. You’re probably getting doubled the performance at best, which barely makes a noticeable difference in gaming when PS1 to PS2 had 180x better GPU.

I think the next leap has to come from mostly software and I think we will move towards a world in which most/all of the rendering is done by an AI. See Google’s Genie3.

mfro• 3 days ago

The reality is more along the lines of traditional rendering with special ML models inferring and splicing in generated frames. Framegen is already in most modern games and Nvidia has made it a driver level option for many unsupported ones. In case you haven’t used it — it is black magic. Studios will have almost no motivation to optimize if framegen can be perfected, and it’s not far.

SapporoChris• 3 days ago

Your conclusion that "... in order to get faster chips, you have to use bigger dies, fancier packaging, more cooling, more power.", is really not supported by the ending of Moore's law.

Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years, with minimal increase in cost.

weezing2• 3 days ago

This gotta be least memorable generation of all time. Nothing worth noting released on those consoles.

musicale5• 3 days ago

Nothing worth noting released on those consoles

Have you heard of Elden Ring?

Or is your complaint about cross-gen, timed exclusives, and PC releases? Or that there aren't enough new franchises beyond established series and remakes?

Personally I see all of the above as fine. For example Capcom has Resident Evil Requiem (series), Onimusha (remake), and Pragmata (new).

dartharva2• 3 days ago

The video games market currently has a lot more problems going on than just hardware scarcity. Just like how streaming has slopified and gutted Hollywood and cinema production in general [0], subscription-based business models and consumer-hostile delivery have done the same to video games. Gone are the days when studios used to focus on novelty and creativity, now it is all about engagement metrics and RoI slop.

[0] https://youtu.be/g6YvkbqAhAY

musicale5• 3 days ago

There are still lots of great games though.

ndriscoll• 3 days ago

It's probably more that hardware and software were still rapidly getting better in 2004, and HL2 looked significantly better than HL1. By contrast, just looking up the two on youtube, Doom the Dark Ages on ps5 pro isn't obviously any better looking than, say, Skyrim (2011). Even Morrowind looks pretty good with some high resolution pbr textures and a few new shaders.

pjmlp3• 3 days ago

That’s almost 6 years ago. The PlayStation 6 and the new Xbox should be launching soon. If not this fall then perhaps next fall when it will be 7 years from the launch of the current generation.

They most likely won't.

Also given the current mess XBOX management happens to be in, as someone that has been on PC since 1991, I don't have big hopes Helix actually happens, or if they do release it, it would most likely be to comply with existing contracts and avoid possible lawsuits.

adrian_b• 3 days ago

For USA, indeed there is no end in sight to the memory crisis, as long as its politicians work for companies like Micron, which obtains huge profits from the inflated memory prices.

A few days ago, the representatives John Moolenaar (R-MI) and George Whitesides (D-CA) have urged the Trump administration to prevent the purchase by US companies of DRAM and flash memory made by the Chinese manufacturers, which are the only ones who do not belong to the cartel Micron-Samsung-Hynix, so they are willing to sell at lower prices.

Besides, the AI companies, the US government is the main agent working already for many years to artificially limit the competition in several critical markets, including smartphones, DRAM and SSDs, and it has succeeded to cause great price increases, which have hurt people all over the world.

If those like the US representatives mentioned above succeed in their actions, then it is likely that the memory price crisis will extend for a much longer time inside US than in the rest of the world.

Living in Europe, it will be more advantageous for me if the Trump administration restricts even further the availability of memories inside US, because then those will be more available in the rest of the world.

warumdarum2• 3 days ago

What is this fever dream? Is the us government even behind the hemorrhoids?

TitaRusell• 3 days ago

There will come a point were countries are forced to choose between China and the US. The choice may shock some Americans lol.

chung8123• 3 days ago

Even the US picks China for most of their goods.

rchaud• 3 days ago

That's what the entire apparatus of sanctions and blockades are for - to make sure they don't make the wrong choice.

lenkite• 3 days ago

Trump will send the US Navy to intercept all cargo ships demanding his 20%. A defensive action to protect the US economy and US national security. (and increase Trump family wealth for the beautiful job)

blitzar2• 3 days ago

Given their choice not to hedge memory prices early for the steam machine, I am not sure they have a great track record when it comes to predicting which way the prices will be going.

dgellow• 3 days ago

The current approach from manufacturers is „you accept the price or we never talk with you again“. It’s cartel behavior, there is no room for negotiation

blitzar2• 3 days ago

They should have accepted the November 2025 prices - 50% higher than the mid 2025 price but half the prices they paid.

aurareturn3• 3 days ago

Cartel behavior? You mean supply and demand?

warumdarum2• 3 days ago

Have fun to reprogram your games for memory efficiency with llms trained on code grown during a memory glut. What a blindspot..

ekianjo• 3 days ago

if you are interested in sales numbers for the Steam Machine a relevant post I made yesterday: https://boilingsteam.com/steam-machine-between-10k-and-15k-s...

garciansmith• 3 days ago

This article is just a summary of one from Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-17/valve-...

Valve say there's no end in sight to the memory crisis, prices going to increase

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