In its latest earnings call, Samsung reported that it expects the worldwide memory shortage to be “even more severe” next year and persist in 2028.

The rise of AI has been bad for a long list of reasons, from the damning effect on the environment to the depressing loss of human creativity, but one of the most immediate problems has been the worldwide memory shortage. Data centres require a lot of RAM, which means that suppliers all across the world have had massive trouble meeting demand.

That has made things more expensive for most companies, which has in turn been passed down to consumers and made a range of tech, from consoles to accessories, more costly in the process. It’s basically a very bad time to be into games, and one of the leading producers of memory expects it to get worse in the next two years.

Samsung Thinks The Memory Shortage Will Last Through To 2028

As One Of The Main Memory Suppliers, It Likely Knows Best

As reported by The Register, Samsung’s most recent earnings call shared its thoughts on the worldwide memory shortage. For context, Samsung produces nearly a third of the world’s memory chips, so it has perhaps one of the best handles on the current situation and how it’s going to play out.

In the call, Samsung’s EVP of Memory, Jaejune Kim, reported that it will be “unlikely” to see any immediate increase in supply, and that the unmet demand will carry through the next two years and be “even more severe”. Samsung thinks this will persist through 2028 as well, suggesting that things aren’t getting better any time soon.

Kim also said that trying to predict how things look in 2029 isn’t really possible due to limited visibility, so even Samsung has no idea what the future looks like.

If you want to look on the bright side, the mention of 2028 could suggest that the memory shortage might be expected to recover slightly by then. That being said, it really does seem like Samsung isn’t expecting the RAMpocalypse to improve over the next few years. We probably shouldn’t expect prices to start going down any time soon.

What this means for consumers is that pretty much all tech products are likely to get even more expensive and hard to come by than they already are in 2026. Considering the PS6 and Project Helix are expected to arrive in the next few years, that likely doesn't bode well for anyone hoping that either console is going to be less than $1,000.