Sony and Nintendo face memory price surge as AI gobbles up chip supply
Memory chip costs could jump as much as 63% this quarter, squeezing gaming giants while AI data centers hoard semiconductor capacity.
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Add us on Google by Editorial Team May. 9, 2026The AI boom has a side effect that Sony and Nintendo shareholders probably didn’t anticipate: their gaming consoles just got more expensive to build.
Memory chip prices are expected to rise as much as 63% this quarter, driven almost entirely by demand from AI data centers. For two of the world’s largest gaming companies, that translates directly into higher component costs and tighter margins.
Sony’s balancing act: sales down, profits up
Sony has projected a 6% decline in annual gaming sales, bringing the figure down to $28B for the fiscal year. The culprits are twofold: surging memory chip costs and waning PlayStation 5 hardware sales.
Despite that revenue drop, Sony expects gaming profits to climb 30%. Stronger first-party software performance and the absence of prior impairment losses are carrying the profit line even as the top line shrinks.
Nintendo feels the same heat
Nintendo is navigating the same turbulence. The company has expressed concerns over memory price impacts on gaming margins.
Nintendo’s situation carries an extra wrinkle. The company is preparing for the launch of its next-generation Switch successor while facing supply challenges that could delay releases or lead to price increases.
Both companies are also contending with rising semiconductor and logistics costs beyond just memory chips, which are reshaping their supply chains in the gaming industry.
Why AI is to blame
AI data centers need enormous quantities of high-bandwidth memory to train and run large language models, pulling supply away from other industries. Major companies like Nvidia and AMD have prioritized high-bandwidth DRAM and HBM for GPUs, thereby neglecting the consumer gaming sector.
For investors, the divergence in Sony’s numbers tells the real story. Revenue declining while profits rise suggests the company is successfully insulating itself from hardware cost pressures through its software ecosystem, driven by stronger first-party software performance and the absence of prior impairment losses.
Nintendo investors should watch hardware pricing decisions closely. If the company announces next-generation hardware at a price point higher than expected, or delays launches or adjusts specs downward, memory costs are the likely reason.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
