Phison CEO Claims DRAM/NAND Pricing and Supply Issues Will Lead to the End of Many System Integrators and Consumer Electronics Companies

Sony considering PlayStation 6 delay to 2029, while Nintendo could hike Switch 2 price, according to report — memory and storage chip shortage now impacting products outside of RAM, storage, and GPUs​

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By Jowi Morales published 5 hours ago
Is this just the tip of the iceberg?


Valve has recently announced that Steam Deck availability is now intermittent due to the current situation, and Bloomberg now reports that Sony and Nintendo are considering taking drastic actions, too.

“Sony Group Corp. is now considering pushing back the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.


We’re unsure how long the memory chip shortage will last, with some estimates pointing out that it could go on for as long as a decade. Nevertheless, some believe that the memory chip fabs would’ve caught up with the demand by 2028 or 2029, meaning prices would’ve stabilized by then, even if they do not return to pre-shortage levels.

The news of chip shortages has been circulating among PC enthusiasts since the last quarter of 2025, but it seems that that is just the beginning. Gaming consoles and handhelds are now feeling the pinch, with mobile phones expected to follow suit. Even cars will be hit by the shortage, especially as nearly every modern feature found in automobiles requires DRAM and NAND.

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-...ting-products-outside-of-ram-storage-and-gpus
 
While we've have some pretty reliable leakers over the years I'm begging to wonder how many will keep making claims that new consoles will arrive before 2028 just to keep getting their clicks. This due the growing list of official statements from industry execs stating the same thing over and over regarding the supply is already pre-ordered through 2028 and the majority is not for consumer products. NVIDIA and AMD are the only ones mainly keeping silent when it comes to consumer products, and no news is bad news when it comes to this stuff,
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
While we've have some pretty reliable leakers over the years I'm begging to wonder how many will keep making claims that new consoles will arrive before 2028 just to keep getting their clicks. This due the growing list of official statements from industry execs stating the same thing over and over regarding the supply is already pre-ordered through 2028 and the majority is not for consumer products. NVIDIA and AMD are the only ones mainly keeping silent when it comes to consumer products, and no news is bad news when it comes to this stuff,
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ps6 handheld could buck this trend. as this handheld is primarily for playing PS5 games & not PS6 games

plus unlike the main console, Sony may not be under a budget constraint for the handheld — although ideally it would be priced competitive to the switch 2
 
Totally agree, except who knows what price it will be at given the same problems with the memory shortage. Not sure how many are going to be willing to pay $1K plus for such a device and I really doubt it'll be any cheaper with whats going on. We're already starting to see gaming handhelds getting upwards and over of $2K for the more powerful models.

I had to laugh, there's a link in the post with a transcription (you'll have to use browser translate functions unless you can read Chinese) from the Phison Exec, and towards the end it mentions some new things on the horizon. Basically a redesign of some AI chips featuring less DDR4 memory so that all PCs can be cloud-based AI PCs. I can't facepalm hard enough to express my dismay with that news.
 
I have to wonder when it comes to any new hardware how much consideration a company will go through when weighing the idea of trying to launch in 2026. Should they hold off or risk investing in producing products which might completely flop due to prices being so high nobody will buy them? For those who need to maintain consumer driven revenue that's going to be a hard decision while any who can survive and profit from enterprise sales are taking the easy route.
 
While I agree a big part of this is the AI farms buying up everything. Don't even try to think for one minute that this isn't also a plan by the corporations. They want to restrict freedom of compute and ability to be a threat by removing high end compute from end user control or ability. I mean a bunch of us DIY jackholes could form a distributed compute network using an overlay of grid networking on the internet today and spin up an AI farm from our home that would rival anything these people can build into a single facility. What happens when the consumer base decides... hey wait we can do that? And then does it?

(sure it would need good connectivity and a layering of virtual grid architecture that would boggle the mind of mere mortals... but we could use an AI to build the layout. Then we would have enough compute to be running AI as a service for every person in the US and it would cost then... maybe 5 bucks a month in distributed costs in power/maintenance/design. And it would still be a 5 billion dollar a year org.

You see they don't want the compute and ability to do all of this in your hands. They want to control it. So they are using stupid VC money to buy all of the compute up for the next few years or until checks start to bounce. Reality is if they start offering virtual computing solutions then the majority of people will just go with it and the problem will self sustain.

Or that could be all pie in the sky conjecture based on being in a bad mood for other reasons in life. Who knows...
 
Elf_Boy said:
Is this my last high end system?
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I'm nearing being on a fixed income, 10 years or less depending on how my health goes (nobody should worry, diet and exercise in play already, just tired though) and also wondering if I'm getting to the end of the line for a new rig. I purposely built my AM5 system so I can move up from the 9800X3D when the time comes but that could be a while. Meanwhile I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to get a 5090 for both the AM4/5800X3D and AM5 system but I don't believe the AM4 system will be getting replaced as originally planned. First world problems for sure and again, I know how lucky I've been to get this far. I'm also beyond amazed with the laptop I got during BF and I know it has many years of great gaming down the road as well and that thing is 3/4 paid off now.

New strategy for one final hurrah is getting a fancy 21:9 1440p OLED display either this year or next. I've got a big checklist for it because it'll basically serve as means for the 5090 to perform well in years to come when AAA 4K gets more out of reach due to whatever new demanding features come along.
 
The AI bubble won't last until 2029, maybe not even into 2027, it is already coming apart at the seams. See nvidia's sudden backtracking on their openai investment or the stalling of datacenter constructions. They might have bought 60% of memory chip allocation, but I doubt they'll be making good on those purchases. The current market is not based on reality but a fantasy of AI going to the moon.
 
MadMummy76 said:
The AI bubble won't last until 2029, maybe not even into 2027, it is already coming apart at the seams. See nvidia's sudden backtracking on their openai investment or the stalling of datacenter constructions. They might have bought 60% of memory chip allocation, but I doubt they'll be making good on those purchases. The current market is not based on reality but a fantasy of AI going to the moon.
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I want you to be right. The issue is if Nvidia bails on the OpenAi investment we will see a LOT of in progress AI datacenters just come to a screeching halt as seed money disappears. Because lets be real, if Nvidia a 5 trillion dollar company BUILT on the success of AI can't see the value in the AI originator.. either the market is saturated enough that Nvidia doesn't feel they need Open AI's demand to continue growth, or the inherent risk in AI is far higher than others thought with Nvidia's circular money scheme.
 
Grimlakin said:
The issue is if Nvidia bails on the OpenAi investment we will see a LOT of in progress AI datacenters just come to a screeching halt
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Why is that an issue? That's what we want. If the datacenter is never finished it can't siphon away RAM, GPUs and SSDs. Meaning what they already have in warehouses doesn't get used so the demand for more drops.
 
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