TBF, from how they’ve described the situation it sounds like Valve has as much sway and insider knowledge as me or you. So I don’t think I’d trust their opinion here
I saw in an interview of their engineers that memory suppliers basically just say take it or leave it, at the risk of paying more later or having none at all.
On the scale of all tech companies, Valve is very low down. Even Big Players like Amazon have trouble getting the best deals; if you’re not Apple or nVidia, you get to just go fuck yourself.
last i heard even nvidia having problem making gaming gpu that they’d slashed 50’s card production down. now im not sure how credible this source is but its pretty telling how bad the situation is rn. even if its a lie to slash unprofitable product line.
Samsung is one of the Big Three memory manufacturers. Samsung’s phone division had some news articles talkimg about how they couldn’t get Samsung’s memory division to give them privileged access, even.
(Though for context, about two years earlier, when there was a glut of memory and Samsung’s memory division was losing money, they apparently went to the Samsung phone division and tried to get them to buy a bunch of the excess, which I suppose would have meant putting more memory in their phones than would have been optimal. The phone division told them no way.)
And now it’s the phone division losing money and the memory division making a ton of money.
Samsung’s mobile division may have posted its first-ever quarterly loss in Q2 2026, despite strong Galaxy S26 sales and record-breaking profits for Samsung Electronics overall.
The culprit is memory. DRAM prices have reportedly surged roughly 850% year-over-year, driven by insatiable demand from AI server infrastructure. Samsung’s semiconductor division is reaping the benefits, but its mobile division is paying the bill.
That’s not too surprising. Samsung is one of those mega companies that its own divisions fight for contracts all the time. I remember hearing about, for example, the Samsung division that produces touch screens isn’t guaranteed a spot in the latest Galaxy smartphone but has to bid on contracts for that spot just like everyone else.
Well, I don’t think Nvidia is “having trouble” making 50 series cards. I think they have fab allocations that they are choosing to prioritize to AI products and its current ROI with blank check hyperscalers, compared to retail consumer products.
I mean, historically, absolutely, everyone knows that. But do you know for a fact that, now, in 2026 they’re still getting first pick at normal “sweetest deals”? I would assume maybe better than some, or at least still getting supplied at all. But I thought I recently (in the last 2-3 months’ish) heard something about them also getting fucked: by the big AI datacenter players; Apple, to my knowledge, is not, at least not on that scale.
If you have insider/industry experience, though, that’s that… I no longer am close friends with people at Apple, and to dispute confident, current inside knowledge becomes a different discussion for a different place with different people.
Why do people think Valve has some godlike influence over everything? Sony has sold over 90 million PS5-s, Sony reduced its Playstation 5 manufacturing in part because they struggled to buy RAM. Valve has sold less than 5 million Steam Decks. If a hardware powerhouse like Sony can’t get all the RAM they want what makes you think Valve, who barely has presence in the global hardware market, has any sway in the global ram production?
Maybe about the same sway but they are purchasing memory on a different market that is about future goods rather than goods currently sitting on shelves. So they will have more day to day visibility on RAM futures than your average consumer will. Price increases will happen there before they affect store shelves.
TBF, from how they’ve described the situation it sounds like Valve has as much sway and insider knowledge as me or you. So I don’t think I’d trust their opinion here
I saw in an interview of their engineers that memory suppliers basically just say take it or leave it, at the risk of paying more later or having none at all.
On the scale of all tech companies, Valve is very low down. Even Big Players like Amazon have trouble getting the best deals; if you’re not Apple or nVidia, you get to just go fuck yourself.
last i heard even nvidia having problem making gaming gpu that they’d slashed 50’s card production down. now im not sure how credible this source is but its pretty telling how bad the situation is rn. even if its a lie to slash unprofitable product line.
Samsung is one of the Big Three memory manufacturers. Samsung’s phone division had some news articles talkimg about how they couldn’t get Samsung’s memory division to give them privileged access, even.
(Though for context, about two years earlier, when there was a glut of memory and Samsung’s memory division was losing money, they apparently went to the Samsung phone division and tried to get them to buy a bunch of the excess, which I suppose would have meant putting more memory in their phones than would have been optimal. The phone division told them no way.)
And now it’s the phone division losing money and the memory division making a ton of money.
https://www.megamobilecontent.com/news/2026/07/17/samsung-phone-division-first-loss-memory-prices/
That’s not too surprising. Samsung is one of those mega companies that its own divisions fight for contracts all the time. I remember hearing about, for example, the Samsung division that produces touch screens isn’t guaranteed a spot in the latest Galaxy smartphone but has to bid on contracts for that spot just like everyone else.
Well, I don’t think Nvidia is “having trouble” making 50 series cards. I think they have fab allocations that they are choosing to prioritize to AI products and its current ROI with blank check hyperscalers, compared to retail consumer products.
Lmao what makes you think even Apple has any special treatment?
Industry experience.
Apple has been overall getting the sweetest deals from chip vendors for quite a while now.
I mean, historically, absolutely, everyone knows that. But do you know for a fact that, now, in 2026 they’re still getting first pick at normal “sweetest deals”? I would assume maybe better than some, or at least still getting supplied at all. But I thought I recently (in the last 2-3 months’ish) heard something about them also getting fucked: by the big AI datacenter players; Apple, to my knowledge, is not, at least not on that scale.
If you have insider/industry experience, though, that’s that… I no longer am close friends with people at Apple, and to dispute confident, current inside knowledge becomes a different discussion for a different place with different people.
My information is probably less out-of-date than yours, but yeah, they’re probably getting hit as well, just not as hard.
I’m curious what their next iPhone is going to cost
They did have to bump up the prices.
Yeah, the specific RAM shortage is affecting everyone.
Also it’s Apple. Even if they got the chips at the same price before they would never NOT raise the price if given the opportunity.
Why do people think Valve has some godlike influence over everything? Sony has sold over 90 million PS5-s, Sony reduced its Playstation 5 manufacturing in part because they struggled to buy RAM. Valve has sold less than 5 million Steam Decks. If a hardware powerhouse like Sony can’t get all the RAM they want what makes you think Valve, who barely has presence in the global hardware market, has any sway in the global ram production?
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Maybe about the same sway but they are purchasing memory on a different market that is about future goods rather than goods currently sitting on shelves. So they will have more day to day visibility on RAM futures than your average consumer will. Price increases will happen there before they affect store shelves.
They certainly have a lot of motive to place blame for their own price increases, justified or not.