this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
638 points (99.1% liked)

Technology

85661 readers
4583 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
638
Valve describes just how brutal RAM negotiations are in 2026 (www.theverge.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
122 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Valve’s Steam Machine finally has a price: a whopping $1,049 for the 512GB configuration or $1,349 for the 2TB version. And those are without bundled controllers, which drive up the cost more.

The prices are so high in part because Valve isn’t subsidizing the hardware, and the company has already indicated that the component crisis forced it to reconsider its initial pricing plans. In an interview with the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus, Valve engineers discussed the reality of sourcing RAM in 2026, with take-it-or-leave-it prices as memory and other components remain in short supply, from only a few vendors like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

[...]

Valve, of course, isn’t the only company in a bind over memory shortages, as the crunch is forcing many hardware makers to make significant pricing changes. Even Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning of incoming price hikes for iPhones, Macs, and other devices. And the RAM crunch isn’t projected to get better anytime soon.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 89 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

From 12:48 of the video:

Gamers Nexus: "Were you able to lock in contracts for memory with the suppliers directly or did you have to jump through a bunch of hoops or..."

Rep from Valve: "Look there's no contract, there's nothing. Those guys...they are...they give us a price every month, and they say 'you can buy that many', and it's yes or no, and if we say no then they never talk to us again".

Gamers Nexus also links another video they made specifically about the DRAM cartel.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 19 points 3 hours ago

Actual fucking cartel.