Console Sales Crash as the RAM Crisis Reaches Handhelds
The Xbox Series X now sells for $799.99 — a full $300 above its launch price, six years into a console generation that’s supposed to be getting cheaper, not more expensive. That number sits at the center of Circana’s latest U.S. retail data, which shows Xbox hardware sales down 33% year-to-date and PlayStation down 25%, the latter’s worst showing since 2013. Nintendo didn’t escape either, sliding 15% for August, while the average Xbox sold for $529 (+26% YoY) and the average PlayStation for $597 (+20%) — both all-time U.S. highs.
If you play on a Steam Deck, a ROG Ally, or a $65 emulation handheld, it’s tempting to watch this carnage from a safe distance. Don’t. The component crisis driving console prices through the roof is aimed squarely at every portable in your bag, and it has already started to land.
The SRAM Land Grab Doesn’t Care About Your Form Factor
Here’s the mechanism, and it’s uglier than a simple supply crunch. Tech companies are building AI data centers at a frantic pace, so memory makers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have redirected a huge chunk of production toward the SRAM those data centers consume — and away from the consumer RAM that goes into game hardware. Fewer chips, hungrier buyers, higher prices. Consoles took the hit first and loudest.
Now look at what every handheld needs to run: LPDDR memory, pulled from the exact same strained supply chain. The Switch 2 already ate a $50 price hike in September. Valve, ASUS, and Lenovo haven’t announced cuts, but they can’t dodge the same math — a Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or Legion Go is a bundle of RAM, an APU, and a battery, and one of those three just got dramatically more expensive to source. The RAM shortage reshaping handheld prices doesn’t stop at the console aisle.
Why the Cheap Retro Handheld Is the Quiet Winner
The retro and emulation scene runs on cheap silicon — RK3566 and H700 chips paired with modest LPDDR — which has kept machines like the Anbernic RG35XX and Miyoo Mini Plus at impulse-buy prices. That insulation is real, but only partial. These makers run on razor-thin margins, and when memory costs spike, someone either eats the difference or passes it along. My read: expect fewer aggressive spec refreshes and softer discounting rather than a wave of $150 emulation handhelds — but the era of effortless sub-$70 impulse buys is under real pressure.
Still, the relative value gap widens from here. If you were planning to sit out the $800-console era with a cheap emulation device, the math favors you more than ever: an RG35XX plays thousands of games for less than a single discounted AAA title, and none of that depends on the memory market calming down.
GTA 6 Will Spike Sales. It Won’t Fix the Prices.
Grand Theft Auto 6 will almost certainly yank console sales upward when it lands — it’s the one release that can make a $550 PS5 feel like a bargain. But the memory makers have said plainly not to expect hardware prices to fall anytime soon, and that has direct consequences for how and when handheld players should spend. I’d expect PC handheld makers to stretch refresh cycles or quietly raise prices rather than cut them, with the next wave of Steam Deck-class devices launching more expensive than the last.
The takeaway for anyone reading this on a handheld: this is a lousy moment to buy new hardware and a great moment to use what you already own. Your Deck, Ally, or emulation setup doesn’t care that a Series X costs $800. Remote and cloud play stretch the silicon you’ve already paid for. And if you genuinely need a cheap entry point, the budget emulation tier — not the console aisle — is where the value lives for the next year.