Despite the ongoing memory shortage, Sony's CFO has said the company should be sorted at least through the end of 2026, which is hopefully good news for prospective PS5 owners.
The ongoing memory shortage is affecting pretty much every tech company at the moment, because – not content with filling everyone's social media feeds with slop – AI companies have consumed roughly 40% of DRAM output. While the cost of buying RAM has spiked, many have wondered how it will affect the likes of console prices. Nintendo Switch 2 won't increase its price for now according to the company's president, however Valve announced it is revisiting Steam Machine pricing and release timing due due to the shortages.
In the company's latest earnings call (via Yahoo Finance), Sony CFO Lin Tao acknowledges the ongoing memory shortage, but assures that the company is in a decent spot. "As for securing a supply of memory, we are already in a position to secure the minimum quantity necessary to manage the year-end selling season of next fiscal year," Tao explains, adding: "Going forward, we intend to further negotiate with various suppliers to secure enough supply to meet the demand of our customers." Hopefully, that means that there'll be enough to last into 2027, too.
Tao also acknowledges the chance of this affecting the price of hardware, saying: "Given the stage of our console cycle, our hardware sales strategy can be adjusted flexibly." However, despite not mentioning plans to adjust the price of the console specifically, Tao seems to imply that Sony is trying to avoid a PS5 price hike, saying: "We intend to minimize the impact of the increased memory cost on this segment going forward by prioritizing monetization of the install base to date and striving to further expand our software and network service revenue."
Yes, the Steam Machine will arrive later than expected and with a higher price, but I'd call it a heads up rather than a delay
