I want the Steam Machine and, precisely for that (and for the more than 1,000 euros for the power it has), I am assembling a PC in pieces. I started choosing components and told myself “when I get paid, I’ll get it.” Two days later I happily looked at my payroll, went to Amazon to formalize the payment and found a surprise: almost 200 euros more. Guilty? The RAM and the GPU and I asked myself something: Do I jump through the hoop or wait?
I commented on that same question a few days ago at the third meeting between editors and subscribers of Xataka Xtra and we draw three conclusions. The first is that everyone spends money on what they want, that’s what we work for. The second is that everything is very expensive and it is difficult to foresee the moment when the situation will change. If it does, of course.
The third conclusion is that if you need any device or think you are going to need it in the short term, there is only one possible path: buy it now because it is already late, but tomorrow it will be even more so.
Apocalypse wrapped 2026
First of all, a short review and at the bottom (although if you read us, you already know perfectly well what this nonsense is about). The consumer market has gone to hell due to the rise of AI. The two concepts are related because AI requires a lot of RAM, as well as storage, and the big problem is that there are very few companies that manufacture these components.
Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron (who have been denounced for seeking to take advantage of the situation) are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture the majority of necessary components and, since AI is so gluttonous, Big Tech has launched itself to create data centers and pay whatever price is necessary, all three have pivoted their production from the consumer segment to only that of hyperscalers.
Consequences? If they don’t make chips for DDR5 memories, prices go up, but they don’t make NAND chips for consumer SSDs either, so prices go up. As they have turned to fast memories, They have abandoned the DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory production lines and, again, prices rise.
They not only rise for consumers, but for companies. Samsung or Apple are two examples, with the latter announcing two days ago that They are going to increase the price of iPads and Macs by an average of 20% because they have no memory. Sony is looking for how to create a PS6 that costs less than 1,000 euros; Nothing saying that It’s not going to release some phones this year.; Raspberry Pi increasing its price A LOT and Microsoft rethinking its next Xbox because it gets out of hand.
These are just a few examples, I think the idea is clear. That is, it is not that assembling a PC in parts is more expensive, it is that even routers are more expensive because they have some NAND chip inside.
When being an early adopter is a good idea (and it shouldn’t)
In the conversation with subscribers we decided to bring up the topic of early adopters. This term has been used (sometimes pejoratively) to refer to those who buy hardware on launch day, even knowing that you are going to pay more for a product that is worse than the revision they will release a year or two later.
The case of the consoles is very revealing. The first models of PS3 and Xbox 360 were expensive (especially PS3, I still remember the 600 euros at launch with a controller and no games), but objectively worse than the ones they released two/three years later. Sony revised the design and released the PS3 Slim for 300 euros that heated up less and made less noise, and Xbox also launched a 360 Slim without red lightswith more internal storage and WiFi.
You paid less, they were better, but you played later. If you weren’t in a hurry, absolutely nothing happened. The problem is that things have changed and with Xbox Series and PS5 The opposite has been seen: the consoles have been rising more and more in price. Now it has a certain justification because the crisis and such, but both ate one or two increases before any crisis.
And so I come to the conclusion of this article. In January, when prices were already crazyI thought “I’m going to build a PC in pieces.” I didn’t do it because it was like “bah, I don’t 100% need it right now.” Now, I would travel back in time to give myself a couple of kicks.
January was the best time, then February, then March and then… the 1,700 euro PC from two days ago. Because the easiest thing, and this is what the market trend is telling us, is that within a week, two or a month, those 1,700 euros will easily disappear and the same hardware will be more expensive. If it’s still available, that’s another matter.
Lenovo already said in February that, if you needed something, you bought it as soon as possible. And given what I’ve seen, I recommend the same thing: if you need something new or if you think you’re going to need it in the short term, tomorrow is too late.
We are jo….robbed
Because, speaking of Lenovo, they also just say that the prices of some components They will never return to the pre-AI situation. You will think that it is an exaggeration, but in the world we live in it is something that makes all the sense in the world.
Although there are segments in which declines in sales are being noticed (PlayStation has had the worst May in its history since the one registered in 2001), those that control the component market because they are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture them They are going to continue selling to hyperscalers.
We have seen it on several occasions: these companies are skyrocketing because that is where the business is right now and the problem for us as users is that competition is not possible. China has CXMT It makes good memories, but it seems not so good by the standards of hyperscalers and we could see a respite in device prices, but nothing is certain.
And although it has been rumored that there are companies interested in entering the competition, setting up the clean rooms needed to manufacturing DRAM and NAND chips is very expensive and, above all, it takes a long time. Then there is the fact that no one knows very well when the situation is going to change because Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and who is interested in everything being extended as long as possible, points to seven years of wild investment in AI. Other voices speak of 2028… or 2030.
Whether the forecasts are more optimistic or more negative, the truth is that people still need cell phones and computers, and that Lenovo says prices will never return to normalAs I said before, it makes sense. Because if tomorrow the iMac I work with breaks, even though the current one is much more expensive, I will have to buy it. And if I look at the second hand, the price will also increase because it is the law of the market.
If we continue to need things and therefore buy them, companies learn that they can raise the price ceiling little by little because they will continue to sell. There was no crisis when phones surpassed the 1,000 euro barrier and now for that price you can’t find anything premium launch.
I was telling you about my case with the Steam Machine because when the price was announced it seemed very expensive to me. It didn’t seem like it to me: it is. Looking at performance analysis, we discovered that it really is not a machine as designed for 4K as it was made out to be from the beginning. It is equivalent to a base PS5, in short.
However, if you build a PC (which is better, yes, I don’t doubt it) that for 1,500 euros seemed expensive to me, but more attractive than the Steam Machine, but which right off the bat goes up to 1,700 euros, because I’m already starting to consider things and see the Steam Machine with different eyes to play, above all, games and games from other generations.
The sad thing about this article is that I could publish it every day for the next few months and it would still be less true. With the article I published about Sony killing the physical format I left a positive note: retro and old consoles are your friends. With this situation there is no positive note: buy now what you think you are going to need.
I’m sorry.
Image | sfreimark (edited)
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