If, by some miracle, you've been living on the moon in a soundproof dome for the last six months, you may not have noticed that gaming hardware has grown extremely expensive, making the hobby a mostly miserable affair for all involved. We first called it the RAM crisis, but the sad reality is that it's now spilling over into storage, and experts are predicting a grim future.

It's shredding PC gaming, as Valve's much-anticipated Steam Machine launched at over $1,000 for its cheapest model — a higher price than most might have expected — with its creators explaining that it "reflects the state of the world". Consumers are flanked at every turn, as anyone planning to buy older generations of memory sees that DDR4 and even DDR3 prices are going up.

It's easy to point fingers at Microsoft, given its undeniable, if somewhat retracted, obsession with AI, whether that's Copilot in Windows or an implementation across its Azure cloud stack. And let's be honest, it's not without irony that XBOX CEO Asha Sharma said that "gaming is becoming unaffordable" just before the brand announced a price increase on its consoles.

Sure enough, Xbox's Matthew Ball agrees that "crisis is the right term", and the effects of expensive RAM will undoubtedly be felt in the lead-up to its next-gen Project Helix console — which supposedly behaves more like a gaming PC — and who knows what its launch price might look like (over a thousand dollars?) In fact, hardware pivots are already appearing in Microsoft's PC hardware, as the Surface Laptop returns with 8GB of RAM to keep costs down.

I know, I'm hardly a beacon of good news or hopeful visions of the future, but this AI bubble will presumably break at some point, and it's good to take stock of what options we actually have. The usual midsummer onslaught of sales events brought some relief with retailer discounts, and pre-built gaming PCs maintain a hint of value throughout. Still, prospective buyers will have to brace for an inevitable sting if they plan to grab something later this year (or into 2027).

If you're interested in console gaming, you're looking at a minimum of $749.99 for a digital Xbox Series X — that's the one without a disc drive — or $499.99 for a similarly discless (and less powerful) Xbox Series S. On Sony's side, a PS5 Pro is now $899.99, or at least $599.99 for a digital base PS5. That's without any games, by the way, and Grand Theft Auto VI recently confirmed a $99 price tag for a code of its Ultimate Edition with all in-game content intact.

Gamers at large are already expected to spend close to $1,000 just to get started. The entire situation is absurd and unfair, but it puts the price of handhelds like MSI's $1,799 Claw 8 EX AI+ into perspective; that's just how much this kind of ultra-enthusiast hardware costs now. The whole thing reminds me of a bygone era of crypto mining that drove up GPU prices, but this time, it's bigger and even more insulting.

So, what are you supposed to do? You can penny-pinch your way through buying discounted and second-hand hardware, or you can submit to a future of subscription-based gaming streamed from the cloud. If you don't already own an Xbox, I'd suggest picking one up before the price increase happens in August, but that's about all you can do. Stay strong, gamers.

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Ben is a Senior Editor of Windows Central, covering PC gaming hardware, software, and everything connected to it. He's built more custom desktops than he can count, and has hands-on experience with some of the most exciting components and accessories for Windows PC and Xbox. A lifelong obsession with Microsoft's technology has led to broad expertise in laptops and in the cutting-edge processors that are pushing the industry forward.