The global DRAM shortage is the single biggest hardware crisis to hit the gaming industry since the pandemic chip shortage of 2021, and it's arguably even worse. Why? Because while the chip shortage situation improved within a year (or two, tops), the still-ongoing AI boom means that this situation is going to get worse before it gets better. So how will this affect Grand Theft Auto 6?
Memory prices have surged over 50% in the past year, and there are no signs of slowing, to the point that it's fair to wonder whether it will affect the release of the next generation of consoles. However, if you ask Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, about this, this is his straightforward answer:
We don't see it affecting the delivery of consoles to the market.
In the same interview with The Game Business, where he dismissed AI as a threat to Rockstar Games, made a conditional promise about in-game advertising, and claimed every adult with a console will buy and play GTA 6, the long-time Take-Two head expressed a sort of confidence that drew a laugh from the interviewer, who replied and said, "I hope you're right." While we certainly admire the optimism, supply chains care not for it, and the DRAM shortage has a huge impact on anyone planning to buy GTA 6 come November 19.
GTA 6 is launching exclusively on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with no PC version at launch. If consoles become harder to find or more expensive to buy because of the memory shortage, it does not matter how good the game is or how badly people want it. You can't sell a current-gen title if players don't have a machine to run it on. If the DRAM shortage makes consoles scarcer or pushes prices up further, the pool of people who have a console on November 19 gets smaller, and Zelnick's "every adult" prediction hits a ceiling that has nothing to do with "want" and everything to do with "is there any stock left?"
The current DRAM situation is far worse than you'd think. It isn't just a simple hardware component. It is in the GPU, the storage controller, and virtually every element that makes modern hardware function. When DRAM prices spike, the entire bill of materials for a console rises.
Sony reportedly stockpiled enough memory to buffer PS5 production through 2026, which is good news. If those reports are accurate, PS5 supply should remain stable through the holiday season, but how many more consoles has Sony actually prepared? We don't know. Microsoft is already considering an imminent price increase for the Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo is reportedly considering the same.
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True, Zelnick's statement that he does not see the shortage affecting console delivery is probably accurate for the next eight months. Sony's advanced thinking likely acts as a buffer for a game whose second delay led to a historic drop in console sales and whose release will hopefully lead to an expected rebound.
Besides, the install base of PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, now in their seventh year on the market, is already large enough to support a massive launch. The people who are going to play GTA 6 on day one almost certainly already own the hardware. The question is not whether the DRAM shortage will prevent GTA 6 from selling 40 million copies, but the question lies in its long-term impact.
Grand Theft Auto V is the second-best-selling video game of all time because it launched across three console generations and was released on the PC twice. It has a revenue model that depends on a growing install base of consoles and desktop players. If the DRAM shortage delays the 'PS6' to 2029, as some reports suggest, the PS5 becomes the platform GTA 6 lives on for years longer than anyone expected.
Every year the current console generation extends is a year that GTA 6 cannot benefit from the performance improvements and larger installed base that a new generation would bring.
If the shortage persists, the next-gen transition that would normally bring a wave of new console buyers into the ecosystem may not happen until GTA 6 is already three or four years old, which isn't good news for the game and its long-term commercial success.
