The AI boom is officially cannibalizing your living room.
Silicon Valley’s insatiable appetite for data center hardware has triggered an unprecedented global memory chip shortage. The collateral damage has reached the console market. Sony Group confirmed another global price hike for the PlayStation 5. The United States retail cost will jump by $100.
Reuters reported the hardware adjustment on Friday. This marks the second time in less than a year that Sony has passed surging component costs directly down to consumers.
The AI squeeze on consumer hardware
Tech giants are hoarding silicon. Massive demand for AI processing power is monopolizing the world’s supply of DRAM and High-Bandwidth Memory components. Consumer electronics manufacturers are simply being outbid.
Speaking at Nvidia’s GTC conference in mid-March, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won delivered a bleak forecast. He warned the global memory shortage is projected to last until 2030. Industry wafer supply is currently trailing demand by more than 20 percent.
The financial metrics are brutal. DRAM prices skyrocketed by nearly 100 percent in 2025. They jumped another 60 percent in the first quarter of 2026. NAND memory costs also spiked 70 percent. Market analysts expect combined DRAM and solid-state drive costs to surge by up to 130 percent before the end of the year.
Industry fallout and future hardware
Sony is not the only manufacturer caught in the crunch. The component crisis is upending pricing strategies across the entire sector.
According to unconfirmed reports from supply chain analysts, the memory shortage is threatening upcoming hardware cycles. Nintendo may be forced to price its Switch 2 successor above $500 just to avoid taking a loss at retail. Analysts suggest Sony could delay the eventual PlayStation 6 launch until 2029 in hopes of outlasting the inflated memory market.