Gaming might be in the midst of a severe meltdown, considering the rising prices of electronic equipment (more specifically, RAM/memory). The rise of AI based applications and solutions has caused demand for memory to skyrocket, and with major companies such as Nvidia shifting focus to AI workloads over gaming, there isn’t much of a silver lining left in here.
Gaming and gamers could be in for a very difficult time in the near future, and things look quite bleak right now.
Gaming Gets More Expensive as RAM Prices Soar
RAM prices across the world have hit record high levels, largely thanks to the AI boom and present state of volatile world affairs. This has resulted in an increased pricing for PC components (in particular, memory).
The memory shortages seem to affect all sorts of consumer and enterprise level hardware, ranging from graphics cards to data servers. We’re already seeing the effect of the shortage, with DDR RAM kits seeing a massive price bump in the recent few months, nearly doubling in its MSRP.
Of course, this isn’t exactly limited to RAM kits, and extends into all kinds of memory, including GPUs and integrated graphics, such as that seen within consoles. Console prices have already been confirmed to be a whole lot more expensive for the next generation, with both AMD and Xbox reaffirming the same.
All of this can be tied down to hardware production being shifted to meet the continually growing demand of AI workloads, which has taken precedence over gaming. In fact, we could see the production of lower end GPUs be halted entirely, as high end and mid range versions take precedence.
There’s really not much else to do here, and gaming might just fall into a slump as modern hardware slowly becomes out of reach for the average consumer. This is made worse by the recent trend of releasing unoptimized titles that demands ridiculously high specs for barely any visual uplift over the previous generation.
That being said, it might be time for the industry to rethink and retrace its steps. There is more than one way to present a game in terms of its visuals, and not everything needs to be hyper realistic or computationally expensive.
There’s always a workaround, and the industry will have to adapt and choose better, optimized game engines to meet with the changing times. One thing is for certain though, we’re in for a rough few years (once again), at least until the bubble bursts, and the dust settles.
