… This is according to Mat Piscatella at Circana, who says Sony saw its best week of the year between March 29 and April 4. “US weekly unit and $ sales of PlayStation 5 hardware,” he says, “reached 2026 highs during the week ending April 4th, as price increases loomed.” This represents, he claims, al… …
… Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked what the model will be for its gaming business moving forward during a recent live event and while he didn’t offer many fresh clues, he certainly sounded disappointed that Xbox is so bad at making money. “The challenge now for us is to think about how do you in… …
… Helium is a key and unreplaceable ingredient in making semiconductors, which means hardware prices go up,” he said. “It’s an unreplaceable byproduct of making silicon wafers, which means if you’re Nintendo and you’re producing cartridges, that’s going up as well.” Nintendo can try to absorb some of… …
… Outgoing CEO Tim Cook warned about these price hikes just last week. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable,” he told The Wall Street Journal . “I’… …
… It’s true that the AI-fueled RAM shortage has put outsized pressure on Valve to raise hardware prices because it can’t leverage the same economies of scale and supply chain pricing power that its PC and console gaming competitors have access to. …
… Even looking past economic instability, environmental damage and future appearances at the Hague , the resources being set aside for data farms are causing a disruptive RAM crunch , raising hardware prices and turning PC gaming back into a rich person’s hobby. …
… Xbox isn’t abandoning AI entirely. AutoSR, a feature to have hardware automatically optimize performance to achieve better trade-offs between resolution and framerate, just recently rolled out on the ROG Xbox Ally X for users in the Xbox Insider testing program. …
… All future consoles may cost a bare minimum of $1000 but at least you can ask chatgpt if it's raining outside — Jon Cartwright @jon.gvg.io 2026-06-22T18:45:18.754Z yeah the steam machine is expensive, but the good news is everyone is making so much more money thanks to our AI-enhanced productivity … …
… But the bigger factor in the ongoing gaming cost crisis is likely a shortage of components driven by the AI hyperscaling race. Hardware makers, including Valve, have had to cancel, delay, or jack up their prices across the board as the cost of RAM, storage, and other parts go up by double digits. …
… Every analyst I spoke to said that gaming hardware costs were only going to keep rising, with most analysts giving an estimate of somewhere between 2027 and 2029 before prices began to ease, if they eased at all. …