SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron sued over allegations of "concerted anticompetitive behaviour" in DRAM market

SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron are now facing a class action in California over alleged coordinated anticompetitive behavior in the DRAM market. The suit claims the three companies have worked in lockstep since 2022 to restrict consumer DRAM supply, shift capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for data centers, and keep prices elevated.

For game developers, this is not just a chip-industry story. DRAM and NAND pricing feeds directly into the cost of consoles, gaming PCs, handhelds, and dev kits, and the current AI buildout is already squeezing consumer hardware supply. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve have all raised hardware prices, with Valve saying its upcoming Steam Machine is more expensive than it wanted because of the AI boom.

The complaint points to Micron’s shutdown of its Crucial consumer DRAM business in 2025, allegedly at a time when it was at peak profitability, and says conventional DRAM prices have climbed about 700% over the last four years. It also argues that the market is hard to break into because a DRAM fab can cost $15 billion to $20 billion, making new competition slow and expensive.

There’s also historical baggage here: Samsung, Hynix, and Micron were previously found guilty of criminal DRAM price fixing between 1998 and 2002. For studios, the practical takeaway is simple—hardware budgets, QA coverage, and minimum-spec planning may keep getting harder as AI demand continues to pull memory supply away from consumer devices.