Like most PC gamers, I'm not a fan of the dramatic rise in PC component prices over the past year. In fact, it seemed like they were just starting to recover from the soaring GPU prices of the COVID-19 era, when prices for SSDs and RAM began to rise at an alarming rate.
PCPartPicker's report shows just how dramatic these price increases can be. For example, the average price of two 8GB sticks of DDR4 RAM in July 2024 was around $40. By November 2025, the average price had risen to $140. SSD price increases were less extreme, but still notable. PC Gamer reports that a very common model, the Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB SSD, has increased in price from $130 in August 2025 to $221 in December 2025.
Of further concern regarding SSD and RAM prices is the component supply shortage they are facing due to the construction of large-scale data centers. These high costs are problematic for several reasons. One of them is that next-generation gaming hardware may be delayed.
Why you'll have to wait longer for new gaming tech due to lack of RAM and SSD
The console is sold at a loss.
Sony and Microsoft absolutely want people to buy their consoles, but maybe not for the reasons you think. It's often said that modern consoles are sold at a loss, and this is partly true. Testifying as an expert witness in the 2021 Epic Games v. Apple trial, Xbox Vice President of Business Development Lori Wright claimed the company never profited from console sales. Sony reported that it started making money on the PS5 Disc Edition console about a year after launch, although data on the digital version of the console is more vague.
It's important to note that it's somewhat unusual for Sony to profit from PS5 disc edition sales less than a year after launch. Console revenues typically begin to outpace the console's production costs a few years after its initial release.
The point is that consoles make money from software sales, subscription services, and peripherals, and any losses from console sales are accepted as a cost of doing business. It is even more important to drive users into a controlled ecosystem where they can monetize digital purchases and accessories. But of course, these companies don't want to lose money on console sales and try to keep the cost of console production down as much as possible.
With SSD and RAM prices rising at an alarming rate, this careful balance is likely to be disrupted. It may make more sense to keep the current generation around longer than to churn out new consoles with the latest gaming hardware and incur even greater losses.. This also matches the current ranking of the console market. PlayStation has completely outsold Xbox at this point. The former is likely not worried about the latter losing market share, and the latter knows that it will not outsell the former anytime soon. The Nintendo Switch 2 has just been released, but Nintendo has never been so optimistic about technological advancements anyway. So at this point, you're mostly left out of the conversation.
PC and Console Hardware Can Use Breather
Sony's PS5 sales may be taking off, but consumer sentiment toward console gaming certainly isn't. There are several reasons for this, but the biggest one may be the gradual progress between generations, where in the past there were huge leaps forward. Think about the differences between the last few games on PS1 and the first few games on PS2. They were day and night. The differences between the last few PS4 games and the first few PS5 games were virtually indistinguishable. There may be something similar about the performance gains between 40-series NVIDIA GPUs and 50-series GPUs.
Additional RAM, load times via SSD, and general processing power are important, but these factors often do little to influence the player's emotions, which is the most important thing in any game. That said, any sense of awe players may have felt over things like photorealistic graphics has stagnated over the years, not matched by the rapid rise in component prices. In fact, when major publishers are selling their upcoming games, it may be a smarter financial decision to focus on things that aren't hardware-related, such as novelty, narrative, and mechanical depth.
There's also the issue of game streaming, which makes it more difficult for customers to upgrade their console or PC setup.
Good news: It's time for a new look at console and PC hardware.
The latest and greatest in video game technology is no longer what it used to be. Overall, consumers seem to be more attracted to exciting experiences than cutting-edge hardware. It's only one of six games nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards, as evidenced by the biggest games of 2025.death stranding 2—You could realistically call it “state-of-the-art” from a visual or technical perspective.
This doesn't mean developers should stop trying to push technological boundaries; Both hardware manufacturers and consumers seem to place more value on the games themselves rather than where they are played.. Features that were once considered costly advancements, such as ray tracing, 4K, 60FPS, etc., are now simply taken for granted. For example, there are a small number of consumers who argue that 60FPS alone is not enough or that 4K does not provide sharp enough images.
This isn't about the undeniable success of low-end games like . Hollow Knight Silksong and hades 2This is below the skill level of typical PC builds and modern consoles. If the SSDs and RAM that consumers buy and console manufacturers use in their builds are still too expensive; It's likely that more, better, lower spec games will hit the market in the coming years.. Audiences may have to use current-gen consoles and PC kits, but that means more better-optimized games will be available. Rather than pursuing constant advancement, the idea is to leverage the strengths of popular hardware.
