Memory crisis could last a decade and ‘bankrupt’ companies warns electronics CEO

Business execs think the memory shortage could impact electronics companies into 2030 and beyond, as Sony and Microsoft prepare to launch next gen consoles.

We’ve recently heard about how the worldwide memory shortage could delay Sony’s launch for the PlayStation 6 and Microsoft’s next Xbox, but its detrimental impact on the games industry could be felt for more than just a year or two.

Ever since late last year, the price of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) has increased due to companies like OpenAI and Google swallowing up resources to build AI data centres. This has left other tech companies to fight over the remaining supply of chips, made by the likes of Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

These shortages have already affected companies like Valve, through potential price increases to its upcoming Steam Machine hardware and low supplies of the Steam Deck, but there’s concern this crisis could lead to the end of some tech companies entirely.

In an interview on YouTube earlier this week, Pua Khein-Seng, the CEO of Taiwanese electronics company Phison, claimed the memory shortage will lead to a ‘massive die-off’ in consumer electronics companies, with some potentially going bankrupt as early as this year.

While we can’t verify Khein-Seng’s exact comments in the interview (the YouTube video is in Chinese, with no English subtitles available), his answers have been summarised by X user 駿HaYaO and translated by PC Gamer.

駿HaYaO wrote: ‘From the end of this year to 2026, many system vendors will go bankrupt or exit product lines due to a lack of memory. Mobile phone production will be reduced by 200-250 million units, and PC and TV production will be significantly reduced.’

Khein-Seng further claims that memory manufacturers are ‘demanding three years’ worth of pre-payment’, which is apparently unprecedented in the electronics industry. It’s said these memory manufacturers ‘internally estimate the shortage will last until 2030, or even for another 10 years’.

According to this summary, Khein-Seng doesn’t name any specific companies at risk, but he does state ‘large numbers of low-margin brands will exit’ in the second half 2026, and ‘low-end products will disappear’.

While neither Sony or Microsoft could be described as a ‘low-margin brand’, it’s possible these shortages could impact both of them in a significant way.

In fact, in its financial results from earlier this month, Sony chief financial officer, Lin Tao, explained how the company plans to offset rising memory costs by focusing on ‘monetising the installed base’, and growing software and network services revenue.

Tao doesn’t spell out any specific plans but, based on the verbiage, it certainly sounds like price hikes for PlayStation Plus subscriptions are in contention, along with releasing more games, and any other ways of rinsing cash from existing PlayStation 5 owners.

We’ll have to wait and see if this memory shortage will have significant consequences for the games industry in the long term, but for now, the early signs are very worrying.

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