every price rise I've covered this month is the same story. I think we're all underreacting

a graphics card, a games console, a $45 hobby board, a hard drive and a retro handheld all got more expensive this year for one identical reason.… Aliteq Ravi Malhotra · Hardware Editor

Six unrelated-looking 2026 price rises — GPUs, a console, an SBC, hard drives, retro hardware — all trace to the same AI-driven memory shortage.

Memory is now the dominant cost in a lot of devices, and AI datacenters are buying the same supply consumers need.

Analysts don't expect normalization before late 2027, so 'wait for prices to drop' is not a plan.

My honest advice: buy the memory-heavy thing you actually need now, and delay the things where memory isn't the bottleneck.

The common take is 'prices are up, wait for them to come down.' I don't think that's right this time. Supply is committed on long-term agreements well into 2027 and 2028, and analysts don't expect…

The bit I think people are getting wrong

A $2,000 graphics card and a $25 retro cartridge do not normally belong in the same sentence. In 2026, they do.

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