In what has already been an exceptionally rough time lately for gamers in the PC hardware market, it’s about to get worse, especially if you’ve been eyeing up a brand new MSI graphics card, motherboard, or gaming laptop.
In fact, MSI just revealed that a general price rise on gaming products is coming, and it could be anywhere from 15–30% per product, all to combat what MSI general manager Huang Jinquing calls “the most challenging year since the company was founded.”
This is quite a bold statement, as MSI is a staple of the computing and gaming markets, having been founded in 1986. Granted, it is incredibly hard to recall another moment in time where the perfect storm of availability, demand, tariffs, and developing tech created such a monumental groundswell. RAM struggles are well-documented by now, and with threats looming for next-gen home consoles as well as the current PC gaming market, MSI’s price hikes are both expected and a gut punch at the same time.
Budget Gamers Hit Hardest
Most notable from the interview with Huang (machine translated from United Daily News in Taiwan) is MSI’s intention to switch focus away from budget or entry-level GPU SKUs due to “limited memory supply.” Instead, the plan is to focus on higher-end lines such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 and 5070.
This is where a 15–30% increase may be seen, although it’s posited that while the overall sales volume will decline, revenue may rise, although this will take time to determine.
It’s a tactic adopted by other hardware manufacturers throughout this RAM crisis, but it relies heavily on the market buying into the idea that if the price gap between low and high-end hardware is closed by reducing availability and raising the lowest prices, gamers will automatically sway toward the high-end option, rather than abstaining from a purchase at all.
Given that we’re treading in uncharted waters at this point, it’s hard to say what the right move is for all involved, but many manufacturers seem to be moving in the same direction, so gamers likely won’t have much of a choice other than to take the plunge and shift focus to high-end hardware, or risk massively overpaying for what they’ll now get if opting for a budget alternative.
While Huang doesn’t directly call out any additional products like laptops or monitors in the price hikes, the language used means there is every chance these price rises could hit all aspects of the MSI gaming portfolio, so if you’re planning on making a purchase, be sure to do so sooner rather than later.
As If Building A PC Wasn’t Hard Enough Already, Nvidia And AMD Will Reportedly Raise GPU Prices “Significantly” This Year
Hope the AI videos were worth it.
It’s noteworthy that, despite being quite a wide-reaching business beyond just its PC gaming portfolio, MSI isn’t planning on turning anywhere else to try and make the numbers work, or at least it hasn’t stated as much publicly.
It appears as though gaming is the only option being looked at to offset the harsh market conditions, and with Huang confirming that MSI is planning to increase its AI investment as a way to boost revenue over the next three to five years, any investments needed to make this happen also appear to be coming from potential gains made in the gaming division.
One potential positive to come out of this is the upgrading of motherboards to support both DDR5 and DDR4 memory, a move that MSI laid out as part of its strategy to aid revenue growth. This could relieve some pressure on the DDR5 memory demand in the short term, but given that these hybrid solutions are quite rare at the moment, there’s no guarantee it will have a meaningful impact.
- Date Founded
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April 1, 1993
- CEO
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Jensen Huang
