TBF, from how they’ve described the situation it sounds like Valve has as much sway and insider knowledge as me or you. So I don’t think I’d trust their opinion here
I saw in an interview of their engineers that memory suppliers basically just say take it or leave it, at the risk of paying more later or having none at all.
On the scale of all tech companies, Valve is very low down. Even Big Players like Amazon have trouble getting the best deals; if you’re not Apple or nVidia, you get to just go fuck yourself.
I mean, historically, absolutely, everyone knows that. But do you know for a fact that, now, in 2026 they’re still getting first pick at normal “sweetest deals”? I would assume maybe better than some, or at least still getting supplied at all. But I thought I recently (in the last 2-3 months’ish) heard something about them also getting fucked: by the big AI datacenter players; Apple, to my knowledge, is not, at least not on that scale.
If you have insider/industry experience, though, that’s that… I no longer am close friends with people at Apple, and to dispute confident, current inside knowledge becomes a different discussion for a different place with different people.
last i heard even nvidia having problem making gaming gpu that they’d slashed 50’s card production down. now im not sure how credible this source is but its pretty telling how bad the situation is rn. even if its a lie to slash unprofitable product line.
Well, I don’t think Nvidia is “having trouble” making 50 series cards. I think they have fab allocations that they are choosing to prioritize to AI products and its current ROI with blank check hyperscalers, compared to retail consumer products.
Maybe about the same sway but they are purchasing memory on a different market that is about future goods rather than goods currently sitting on shelves. So they will have more day to day visibility on RAM futures than your average consumer will. Price increases will happen there before they affect store shelves.
TBF, from how they’ve described the situation it sounds like Valve has as much sway and insider knowledge as me or you. So I don’t think I’d trust their opinion here
I saw in an interview of their engineers that memory suppliers basically just say take it or leave it, at the risk of paying more later or having none at all.
On the scale of all tech companies, Valve is very low down. Even Big Players like Amazon have trouble getting the best deals; if you’re not Apple or nVidia, you get to just go fuck yourself.
Lmao what makes you think even Apple has any special treatment?
Industry experience.
Apple has been overall getting the sweetest deals from chip vendors for quite a while now.
I mean, historically, absolutely, everyone knows that. But do you know for a fact that, now, in 2026 they’re still getting first pick at normal “sweetest deals”? I would assume maybe better than some, or at least still getting supplied at all. But I thought I recently (in the last 2-3 months’ish) heard something about them also getting fucked: by the big AI datacenter players; Apple, to my knowledge, is not, at least not on that scale.
If you have insider/industry experience, though, that’s that… I no longer am close friends with people at Apple, and to dispute confident, current inside knowledge becomes a different discussion for a different place with different people.
My information is probably less out-of-date than yours, but yeah, they’re probably getting hit as well, just not as hard.
I’m curious what their next iPhone is going to cost
They did have to bump up the prices.
Yeah, the specific RAM shortage is affecting everyone.
last i heard even nvidia having problem making gaming gpu that they’d slashed 50’s card production down. now im not sure how credible this source is but its pretty telling how bad the situation is rn. even if its a lie to slash unprofitable product line.
Well, I don’t think Nvidia is “having trouble” making 50 series cards. I think they have fab allocations that they are choosing to prioritize to AI products and its current ROI with blank check hyperscalers, compared to retail consumer products.
Maybe about the same sway but they are purchasing memory on a different market that is about future goods rather than goods currently sitting on shelves. So they will have more day to day visibility on RAM futures than your average consumer will. Price increases will happen there before they affect store shelves.