---
title: 'Sony CAN''T Kill the PS5'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=x61AufXkXgs'
video_id: 'x61AufXkXgs'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 702
---

# Sony CAN'T Kill the PS5

> Source: [Sony CAN'T Kill the PS5](https://youtube.com/watch?v=x61AufXkXgs)

## Summary

The video discusses the ongoing RAM crisis and its impact on console pricing and sales, focusing on Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. It highlights how AI data centers are absorbing memory supplies, leading to price hikes and supply constraints. The analysis covers Nintendo's Switch 2 price increase, Sony's PS5 sales decline, and the potential implications for next-generation consoles.

### Key Points

- **RAM Crisis Officially Here** [0:00] — After six months of warnings, the RAM crisis has arrived, causing price increases for Switch 2 ($50), PS5 and Series X ($150).
- **Sony's PS6 Plans Affected** [0:31] — Sony's CFO publicly stated they haven't decided on PS6 launch timing or pricing due to the chip shortage, indicating a rethink of next-gen plans.
- **AI Data Centers Driving Crisis** [1:05] — AI data centers are absorbing global memory, storage, CPU, and GPU supply, causing price spikes and supply drops as foundries pivot to AI.
- **Nintendo Switch 2 Price and Tariffs** [1:33] — Nintendo announced Switch 2 at $450, but US tariffs caught them by surprise; they delayed pre-orders and considered price hikes before sticking with $450.
- **Nintendo Finally Raises Price** [2:52] — Nintendo raised Switch 2 price by $50 to $500 effective September 1st, giving four months notice, unlike Sony's one-week notice for PS5.
- **Nintendo's Lower Sales Forecast** [3:52] — Nintendo expects to sell 16.5 million Switch 2s next year, down from analyst estimates of over 20 million, acknowledging customer loss due to price hike.
- **PS5 Sales Tanking** [5:35] — PS5 had its worst quarter ever, down 46% year-over-year, now trailing PS4 by 3.3 million units at the same lifecycle point.
- **PS5 Price Hikes Blamed** [6:04] — PS5 now costs $650 ($150 more than last year), and PS5 Digital is $200 more than launch, directly impacting sales.
- **Sony's PS6 Uncertainty** [6:58] — Sony's CFO mentioned 'changing business models' and not knowing when PS6 will launch; RAM prices expected to worsen through 2027.
- **PS6 Lite Rumors** [7:57] — Rumors suggest a lower-priced PS6 Lite variant alongside core PS6 and handheld, similar to Xbox Series S strategy.
- **PS5 Should Stay as Budget Tier** [9:11] — The speaker suggests Sony keep PS5 as a supported budget tier alongside PS6, similar to PC backward compatibility, to ease price concerns.
- **Xbox Must Support Current Gen** [10:22] — Xbox hardware revenue down 30% year-over-year; Series X/S price hiked twice; upcoming Project Helix likely premium priced, so Xbox should commit to supporting Series S/X.

### Conclusion

The RAM crisis and tariffs are forcing console makers to raise prices and rethink next-gen plans. Nintendo is managing with a modest price hike, Sony faces declining PS5 sales and uncertain PS6 timing, while Xbox must rely on current-gen support to stay relevant.

## Transcript

- After six months of talking
about the RAM crisis coming,
it is officially here.
Switch 2, $50 more expensive,
PS5 and Series X, $150 more.
Now, Valve haven't raised
the price of the Steam Deck
because it's been out of stock for months.
I mean, look, this is not
what's supposed to happen.
The older a console is, the
cheaper it's supposed to be.
So where is my dang price drop?
The answer is not
anytime soon, my friends.
The result is that PS5 sales are tanking
and this is directly
affecting the next generation.
When asked how the RAM crisis
will affect the PlayStation business,
Sony's CFO immediately pivoted to the PS6
with, quote, "We have not
yet decided on what timing
we will launch the new
console or at what prices."
Not a, "We don't comment
on future hardware."
They are publicly telling investors
that the chip shortage is causing them
to rethink their next generation plans.
This points in one big direction for me.
The current generation of hardware
isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
As bad as prices are now,
it looks like things
are going to get worse
before they get better.
The reason for all of this
is, of course, the RAM crisis.
AI data centers are absorbing
the world's supply of memory, storage,
and quickly CPUs and GPUs as well.
This has caused prices to
spike and supplies to plummet
as the few foundries actually
making cutting-edge stuff
have pivoted to where
the money is: AI, baby.
You know what we don't have enough of?
Data centers.
PlayStations? (scoffs) No
one needs PlayStations.
Who needs Switches?
I just need more data centers in my life.
But it's not just the RAM crisis
that companies have to deal with.
Back in April 2nd of last year,
Nintendo famously announced
the $450 price of the Switch 2.
Now, this was an unpopular decision.
Myself and many others
expected it to be $400.
But the real story was what
also happened on April 2nd.
The US slapped massive tariffs
on, well, basically everything
and absolutely the Switch
2 was caught up in it.
Now, this really caught
Nintendo by surprise.
That night, their president
at the time told "The Verge"
that their $450 price tag was decided on
without factoring in
potential 40%-plus tarriffs.
Now, this caused Nintendo
to delay the pre-order date
and openly consider whether or not
they actually needed to raise the price
before they shipped a single console.
Now, ultimately, they did
opt to stick it out at $450,
probably 'cause they had already committed
to making millions and
millions of Switch 2s,
which did enable one of the
largest console launches
of all time.
A year on, it's clear
this was a smart move.
Within the first couple of months,
Switch 2 stock was plentiful
basically everywhere,
a far cry from earlier Nintendo launches
where consoles were hard to find
for sometimes years after launch.
Well, except the Wii U.
No one gave a (beep).
- [Alex] Hey!
- You know what?
Actually, that's not true.
The Wii U did sell out,
but once it got restocked, it never moved.
But with tariffs still not
totally out of the picture,
Nintendo have run into another problem:
the same RAM crisis the entire
industry is dealing with.
At this point, both Sony and
Microsoft have raised pricing
by a full $150,
and meanwhile, every time
someone asks Nintendo
about price hikes,
up until this point, they basically say,
"Nah, we good, fam.
Don't worry about it."
And then suddenly,
with everything else being more expensive,
that $450 price tag
actually didn't look crazy.
However, they have finally given in.
Believe me, I am not gonna sit here
and tell you that price
hikes are a good thing.
But something to know about Nintendo
is that unlike Sony and Microsoft,
they extra traditionally
sell console hardware
at a small profit.
But thanks to all of this,
they're supposedly selling the Switch 2
at a pretty significant loss
and the investors have been really
hammering Nintendo over it.
So the fact that they only
are raising the price by $50,
it's not as bad as it could have been,
and they're giving everyone
plenty of heads up.
The price doesn't hit
$500 until September 1st,
giving you nearly four months,
as opposed to Sony,
who gave everyone less than a week
before hiking the PS5 price.
The other interesting story here
is Nintendo's other forecast.
They're expecting to sell
just 16.5 million Switch 2s the next year
compared to analyst estimates
before the price hike
of over 20 million.
So, essentially, Nintendo
is telling investors,
"Yeah, we're raising the price
and, yeah, we are gonna
lose customers over it."
Now, I kind of get it.
I mean, even for a big
company like Nintendo,
losing a significant amount of money
on each console that goes
out the door adds up quick,
but they kind of don't
really have a choice.
Xbox at least has the Series
S as a semi-budget option.
Nintendo, they only have the
original nine-year-old Switch,
which is absolutely showing
its age at this point.
Not to mention they're
also raising prices on it
in some regions for the second time.
So what can they do?
Well, I think there's an obvious answer.
Give us the Switch Lite 2.
We demand the Lite life.
I want a Switch Lite 2.
Give me a Switch Lite 2.
The more times I say this,
the more I'm going to
will it to existence.
Look, here's the thing.
As I've discussed many
times, the Switch Lite,
the best version of the Switch.
It was the cheapest, it was the smallest,
it was the cutest,
which is the only thing I care about
when I'm buying consoles.
The original Switch Lite
came out three years
after the original.
So if Nintendo are gonna
follow a similar timeline,
we're looking at 2028,
and I personally think that's a long time
to ask people to pay $500
without a cheaper option.
All things being considered,
I actually do think Nintendo
will ride this one out.
I mean, especially if
they keep that solid slate
of Switch 2 games going, like
"Pokopia" and "Donkey Kong."
I mean, people who want a Switch 2
are still going to mostly buy one.
Now, PlayStation, PlayStation
has a backup plan, right?
Sort of? Maybe?
Oh, they don't. Oh, oh, no.
Their recent earnings call was brutal.
The PS5 had its worst quarter of all time,
down 46% compared to last year.
This means that the PS5 is
now actually trending behind
where the PS4 was at this
point in its lifecycle
by a full 3.3 million consoles.
This is a very different problem for Sony.
I mean, sure, the pandemic supply chain
caused a lot of issues
when the PS5 launched,
but as recently as a year ago,
the PS5 was trending ahead of the PS4.
There is a very clear culprit.
The price has been massively hiked.
I mean, the PS5 now costs $650,
a full $150 more than it did last year,
and the PS5 Digital is worse.
It is now $200 more expensive
than it was when it launched back in 2020.
For a console that's taken five years
to finally hit its stride,
this is a really, really bad look.
In their investor brief,
they discuss how many
PS5s they sell this year
are almost entirely being gated
by how much memory they
can get their hands on
at, quote, unquote, "reasonable prices."
And it's not just hardware.
Sony took a $565 million write-down
on Bungie this quarter,
essentially admitting that "Marathon"
isn't going to save things.
Sony's stock is down over 20%
since the start of the year
and, I mean, there's just
not a lot of good news here.
Now, it's not a full-on disaster.
I mean, the PS5 isn't
exactly going anywhere.
But the bigger problem
really is what comes next.
Now, when Sony's CFO talks
about "changing business models
to come up with the best
solution and strategy,"
he's not just being PR safe,
and that's definitely
not what he sounds like.
Now, I believe Sony when
they discussed not knowing
when they'll actually release the PS6.
I mean, at this point,
the PS6's architecture
is more or less locked.
They've been working with AMD
on Project Amethyst for years.
Their supplier contracts
are signed at this point.
I mean, they can't just tear it all up
and redesign the console
because RAM doubled in price
or tripled in price,
maybe quadrupled in price.
And things are kind of not heading
in the right direction either.
Most companies are expecting 2027
to be worse for memory
than this year, not better.
So whether Sony launches
the PS6 in late 2027
or they push it to 2028 or even 2029,
they might be walking into
a more expensive environment
than what we're seeing right now.
I mean, there's just no good answer here.
Delaying doesn't
necessarily fix the problem.
I think this is why they're talking
about new business models out loud.
So the rumors point to
an upcoming PS6 Lite,
which would be Sony's
lower price PS6 variant.
So based on the leaks,
this would be a third
member of the PS6 family,
alongside the core PS6
as well as the handheld.
Basically the PlayStation
TV all over again.
Ship the portable PS6,
but in a smaller form factor
with no screen or battery
really as a true
competitor to the Series S.
I think the reason why
the Series S did work
is that it matched the performance
of the pro version of the
Xbox One, being the One X,
while still costing a lot less
and with all the benefits
of the current generation
CPU, SSD, and graphics.
Sure, it targets 1080p,
but for a very long time,
the Series S was the best deal in gaming.
If the PS6 Lite can deliver
good PS5-beating performance
at a significantly lower price point,
great, problem solved,
but I have some doubt about
how cheap it really will be
and how many compromises
they'll need to make
on the performance side of things.
Sure, there are other levers
they could play with too.
I mean, they could try to
ship it without a controller
to save some money.
They could give you discounts
based on subscribing to PlayStation Plus
or maybe some kind of all access plan
like Xbox used to offer.
I mean, being creative
on bringing prices down
is a good thing.
But if anyone from Sony is watching,
I have a different pitch.
Come out and say it with me:
the PS5 shouldn't go anywhere
for many, many years to come.
Now, not as a, like, we still
support your old hardware
kind of thing.
No, I mean make the PS5
the actual budget tier
that sits below the PS6.
Keep it up to date with
the same software updates,
the same games as much as possible.
I mean, the same ways that
the PC supports everything
from "Roblox" to "Pragmata,"
the PS6 should exist as an upper tier
to push things forward,
but alongside the PS5,
at least until they can
actually sell a next-gen console
at a reasonable price.
Now, Sony has hinted at
this in earnings calls,
but they keep stopping
short of saying it directly.
But if you tell people right now
that the PS5 that they buy today
is going to be a supported current console
for the next four, five years plus,
even after the PS6 has launched,
I think that goes a long way.
I mean, sure, $650 is a
lot of money for a console,
but, like, wouldn't you feel better
about knowing that that
PS5 you just bought
will actually still be relevant
for a long (beep) time.
That's the specific phrase actually.
PS5, relevant for a long (beep) time.
And here's the thing,
I think Sony should stick with the PS5,
but I think Xbox have to.
Sony is launching the PS6 from a position
of, I would say, relative strength, right?
I mean, even after a very rough quarter,
they've still got the install base,
they've got the games,
they've got the brand.
The PS6 is going to sell fairly well,
no matter if it launches at $600 or $800.
But Xbox doesn't have that luxury.
Hardware revenue there is
down over 30% year over year,
the Series X and the Series
S has been price hiked twice,
and whenever the Xbox
Project Helix does launch,
all of signs point to
it being premium priced.
800 to a thousand dollars there
wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Which is why if Xbox is smart,
they should also commit to
the Series S and the Series X
being fully supported
alongside Project Helix.
To me, I think that the
current generation of consoles
are powerful enough, right?
Like, they're not holding gaming back
like previous generations.
There should be no rush to
leave millions of gamers behind
when the alternatives are
very, very expensive consoles.
Now, there's a lot more to talk about
on the Xbox side of things,
so make sure to subscribe to the channel.
We'll be breaking that
all down into video soon.
But if we step back for a second,
Sony are being pushed by the RAM crisis
toward potentially kind of compromising
what that next generation
is actually gonna look like.
Xbox are doing what they can to come back.
Nintendo, I mean, they're
off to a good start
with the Switch 2,
but they're definitely
not immune to any of this.