The future of PC gaming looks a little bleak right now, as chipmaker Micron has claimed the RAM crisis could last beyond 2026. Rising game and hardware costs have been a consistent theme throughout 2025, but for the most part, most of these price hikes have hit consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. More recently, though, PC gaming has taken numerous blows as AI-driven demand has led to skyrocketing RAM prices.
The current shortage began in Fall 2025, thanks largely to a deal between OpenAI and two of the world's largest RAM manufacturers, Samsung and SK Hynix. When those companies agreed to delegate many of their resources away from consumer components and toward the AI market, DDR5 RAM kits tripled in price in some cases. Since then, other semiconductor businesses like Micron have joined the shift toward AI, further constraining the RAM market and accelerating the worrying rise in PC part costs.
A gaming industry insider states that Xbox consoles could face another price increase, and lists the reason behind Microsoft's rumored decision.
In its latest quarterly earnings report, Micron made the unsurprising but still disheartening prediction that it expects the RAM shortage "to persist...
