"It's a totally crazy market" – The seismic impact of the AI boom on video game hardware

The AI boom is causing severe shortages and price spikes in consumer hardware components — DDR5 RAM now costs 6-8x its September 2025 price, GPUs are increasingly scarce, and SSDs are next. Chip manufacturers like Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have shifted production toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centres, starving consumer supply chains. This is hitting gaming hardware makers hard: Sony raised PS5 prices by $100, Nintendo faces ~40% higher RAM costs for the Switch 2, and Valve has delayed its Steam Machine indefinitely. Game studios are also feeling the squeeze, with IT budgets buying roughly 25% fewer machines than before. Industry analysts expect the pressure to persist as long as AI infrastructure buildout continues, with no near-term relief in sight.