Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has put a hard number on how long gamers should brace for expensive memory. He expects a “continual supply crisis for all gaming-relevant hardware” to run for the next three years, with RAM and storage prices already quadrupling and no clear ceiling in sight. The reason, in his telling, is simple: companies building AI systems and data centers can pay more for the same chips than the entire entertainment industry.
Quick answer: Sweeney expects RAM and storage shortages to keep gaming hardware prices high for roughly three years, until large new memory factories come online. The pressure comes from AI and data-center demand outbidding console and PC makers for the same components.
Why RAM and storage prices are climbing
The core problem is competition for a fixed pool of memory chips. Sweeney describes an “unprecedented wave of investment in building AI systems and data centres,” driven by the belief that they will reshape the economy. That scale of spending lets those buyers outbid everyone else for the components that also go into gaming PCs and consoles.
Gaming ends up last in line. “So we’re getting the short end of the stick, and the prices of RAM and storage are quadrupling, and not necessarily stopping there,” Sweeney said. He first raised the alarm publicly in late 2025, warning that factories are diverting leading-edge DRAM capacity to AI needs where data centers bid far higher than consumer device makers.
The squeeze is measurable. Market research points to PC DRAM supply shrinking as manufacturers prioritize server products, with general-purpose DRAM contract prices projected to rise 13–18% quarter over quarter in Q3 2026 and NAND flash climbing 10–15%. NAND supply constraints are expected to ease starting in the second half of 2027, but memory as a whole stays tight before then.
How long the shortage is expected to last
Sweeney frames this as a multi-year problem with only one real fix. “The only solution, I think, is going to be building massive new factories to meet the world’s capacity demands – and that will happen,” he said. New plants take time to build and ramp, so relief is not immediate.
| Point | What Sweeney says |
|---|---|
| Duration | Continual supply crisis for gaming hardware for the next three years |
| Cause | AI and data-center investment outbidding entertainment for components |
| Price move | RAM and storage quadrupling, and “not necessarily stopping there” |
| Fix | Building large new factories to expand global memory capacity |
What it means for PC and console gamers
On PC, higher memory prices make upgrades harder to justify. A single RAM kit has jumped well past double its earlier cost in some cases, and last-generation DDR4 has become expensive too, so even entry-level builds cost more than they used to. SSD pricing is affected as well, since NAND demand for AI workloads pulls supply away from consumer drives.
On console, the shortage shows up as elevated sticker prices. Sweeney points to a market that now includes $900 PS5 Pros and $800 Xbox Series X consoles. His comments echo warnings from Xbox that memory costs have risen sharply, and there is industry chatter that the memory crunch could push out the launches of the next PlayStation and Microsoft’s “Project Helix” hardware. No delay has been officially confirmed.
The wider “crash” behind the hardware crunch
Sweeney places the component shortage inside a bigger picture, calling the current moment “the worst crash we’ve seen since the 1980s” — a reference to the 1983 console market collapse. He splits the trouble into two forces: external pressure from the hardware shortage, and internal pressure from runaway production costs.
On the cost side, he notes that AAA budgets now land between $250 million and $400 million. That tracks a long-running trend flagged by Playable Worlds CEO Raph Koster, who has argued that game development costs rise roughly tenfold each decade, moving from about $1 million in the mid-1990s to $10 million in 2005 and $100 million by 2015. Higher budgets mean games must sell far more just to break even.
For now, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Memory and storage are the components under the most visible strain; prices are expected to stay elevated, and meaningful relief depends on new factories that will take years to reach full output. If the AI buildout slows or capacity catches up sooner, the timeline could shorten — but Sweeney’s working assumption is a difficult stretch that runs into the back half of the decade.
