With Xbox essentially moving on from the gaming hardware business, many have speculated that consumers will turn more towards PC gaming as opposed to console-based rivals like PlayStation or Nintendo in the near future.
That began looking less likely when it became clear the AI-driven global hunger for memory chips was shooting up the commercial price of RAM by 3-5 times what it was just a few months ago – a 32GB DDR5 RAM kit that cost $82 in August now sells for around $310 according to Ars Technica, making PC gaming look like an even more expensive hobby than it is now.
Today, news suggests that those prices are only going to go higher as Micron Technology, which is responsible for about 25% of the world’s DRAM production capacity and one of the three biggest suppliers of memory chips alongside SK Hynix and Samsung, is reportedly exiting the consumer RAM & SSD business in 2026.
Micron has spent nearly thirty years selling consumer-grade memory along with solid state drives more recently to PC builders and enthusiasts under the Crucial brand name. Now though, it is citing heavy demand from AI data centres as the reason for abandoning its consumer brand.
The shift of their manufacturing away from consumer DRAM to much more profitable HBM memory for AI servers will remove one of the most recognisable names from the consumer PC market. Micron said it will continue shipping Crucial consumer products through the end of its fiscal second quarter in February 2026 and will honour warranties on existing products.
Sumit Sadana, EVP and chief business officer at Micron Technology, said in a statement:
“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”
The company will continue selling Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial customers. As the AI infrastructure build-out continues to cannibalise other tech sectors, experts indicate (via PC Gamer) that supply constraints on DRAM will worsen in the first half of 2026 and persist well into 2028 and beyond.
SK Hynix and Samsung, who together are responsible for 70% of the DRAM market, indicated earlier this week that they have no plans to sufficiently expand memory production to meet demand.
