The crisis around RAM is probably worse than previously thought. In an interview, employees of Valve explained how it works even for them as a major customer, and it sounds quite bad.
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What was that interview about? In an interview, the employees of Valve discussed various topics. This also included the purchase of RAM, which has become extremely expensive in recent years due to the AI boom.
However, even though Valve is clearly considered a major buyer of RAM for its consoles, the company has no chance for negotiations.
Valve needs RAM for its Steam Machine:
Take it or leave it
How does the RAM purchase work? The employees revealed that there are no contracts with the RAM manufacturers; on the contrary. The manufacturers quote Valve a price every month and how much RAM can be purchased.
Worse still, if the price and the offered quota do not fit, there is no room for negotiation. That’s how they say: “And it’s either yes or no. And if we say no, they never talk to us again.”
This leads to the point where Valve sometimes delivers its Steam Machines with two 8 GB RAM units and sometimes with a 16 GB RAM unit. According to the employees at Valve, this would also affect the performance.
Why can manufacturers treat major customers this way? While the “Take it or leave it” sounds like a mafia movie, the three manufacturers Samsung (36%), SK Hynix (32%), and Micron (22%) have such large market shares that there is hardly any competition (source: Bluesky).
Moreover, the AI boom has led to a massive amount of RAM being purchased and paid for months in advance by major suppliers like OpenAI (ChatGPT), Google (Gemini), or Anthropic (Claude).
The race for market leadership in AI is therefore in full swing and is so vast that even Valve, as a major manufacturer, cannot say no without risking access to the products.
The three mentioned manufacturers were once part of an illegal cartel that inflated RAM prices from 1998 to 2002 and was investigated by the US Department of Justice and later found guilty (source: Wikipedia). At that time, the former CEO of Samsung even went to prison for 8 months after a deal but was later promoted and became the CEO of Samsung Electronics in Europe (source: Wikipedia).
For gamers, the AI boom is a problem, as consoles, PCs, and more are becoming increasingly expensive. Do you think prices will fall soon? Or will everything become even more expensive? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Market researchers, meanwhile, believe it will continue as it has been: RAM is currently incredibly expensive, market researchers are sure: this will remain so for a while
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