While the rapid rise in RAM prices has yet to have a massive impact on the cost of current-gen consoles, it's likely that manufacturers will eventually be forced to raise prices on the devices. However, Sony already has plans to minimize the impact of the high cost of components, although this is unlikely to be good news for current PlayStation 5 owners.
While the rapid rise in RAM prices has yet to have a massive impact on the cost of current-gen consoles, it's likely that manufacturers will eventually be forced to raise prices on the devices. However, Sony already has plans to minimize the impact of the high cost of components, although this is unlikely to be good news for current PlayStation 5 owners.
Sony CFO Lin Tao said during the earnings report that the company has already secured the necessary memory stocks for the year-end sales season in the next fiscal year, writes WccfTech.
However, the company plans to "minimize" the impact of rising RAM prices by "monetizing its existing user base while continuing to grow revenue from gaming content and online services."
This is obviously not the best news for the more than 92 million PlayStation 5 owners. While a direct increase in game prices is unlikely (as the company seeks to increase software sales), the mention of revenue from network services hints at a possible increase in the price of PlayStation Plus subscriptions. This will hit the vast majority of users, as the subscription is required to access online multiplayer in most games.
While any price increase is unfortunate, dealing with the rapid rise in component prices, driven largely by the "chip crisis" due to the AI boom, will be the biggest challenge for every hardware manufacturer over the next few years.
This situation is reportedly affecting future systems as well: the PlayStation 6 release could be delayed until 2028 or 2029 in the hope that prices will return to a more reasonable level.
