The NAND shortage predicted by Phison CEO Pua comes at a particularly bad time for the gaming industry. While current consoles are already driving up storage requirements, the price explosion could technically hinder or massively increase the cost of the planned PS6 and Xbox Helix.
The warning of a ten-year shortage has direct implications for the console roadmap. Recent leaks and market analyses from spring 2026 indicate that Sony is already being forced to adjust the PS6's hardware specifications to maintain a competitive price.
PS6: Savings on storage instead of a next-gen leap?
Original plans for the PS6 The standard configuration included 2 TB of fast NVMe storage. However, given the doubling of NAND prices within just a few months, insiders are now reporting a change of heart:
- Standard capacity: Sony is apparently only planning to use 1 TB of SSD storage for the base model of the PS6 in order to keep production costs below the critical mark of $750.
- AI as a last resort: To compensate for the smaller storage capacity, Sony is increasingly focusing on Neural Texture Compression (NTC). This AI technology is designed to shrink game data by up to 70%, allowing more titles to remain installed simultaneously despite a smaller SSD.
- Release delay: Analysts like David Gibson warn that if shortages persist, the launch targeted for 2027 could be pushed back to 2028, as Sony simply cannot secure the necessary quantities at economically viable prices.
For owners of a PS5 or PS5 Pro, the era of cheap storage expansions is coming to an end. While 2TB SSDs were available for under €100 two years ago, the prioritization of AI servers is now driving the prices of consumer drives relentlessly upwards.
Phison's warning that by the end of 2026 you'll "not get the goods despite having the money" also applies to the spare parts and accessories market. Anyone planning to upgrade their console for upcoming blockbusters like "GTA 6" should do so before the production of the iPhone 18 series and RTX 60 graphics cards completely absorbs the remaining capacity in the fall of 2026.
PC vs. Console
On PCs, users can resort to slower QLC drives or external hard drives – however, modern console architectures like Sony's I/O system rely on extremely high minimum speeds. This makes the PS6 generation significantly more vulnerable to market fluctuations than any previous generation. While Phison already generates 70% of its revenue in the stable industrial sector, the gaming sector remains the sacrificial lamb of the AI revolution.
The golden age of cheap terabytes is over. For the PS6, this means: either we pay an "AI surcharge" of over €100 for storage alone at launch in 2027/2028, or we have to make do with paltry 1TB drives artificially kept alive by AI compression.
I'm all set; I have 4TB Ally X SSDs in my PS5 and Asuy. And I also have two spare NVMe SSDs lying around, one 1TB and one 2TB. One is from Samsung, the other from Ally X. Yeah, I also think it's ridiculous that you can't start PS5 games with an SSD connected via USB. That already works on PC, even with the so-called next-gen games.
We get the console for €699 plus €299 for M.2 storage. That brings us to €1000.
And now they want to tell us that manufacturing a 2TB SSD is so much more expensive than manufacturing a 1TB SSD? Then they should save the resources needed for 1TB SSDs and only produce 2TB ones.
As is so often the case, the gamer then has to upgrade it 💁