Cloud Gaming Is Looking More Attractive Than Ever for All the Wrong Reasons

I had a plan. I was going to build my own version of Valve’s Steam Machine using traditional PC parts, then stuff it all into my childhood PC case installed with SteamOS for the ultimate combination of convenience and nostalgia. But I waited too long. The price of RAM has skyrocketed so high that even previous-generation PC components are now sitting at two, three, or four times as much as they were only two months ago. Building any size PC is more untenable than even back during the pandemic-era GPU shortage. Gamers everywhere are looking for an alternative to play their PC game library, and—unfortunately—one of the last remaining avenues demands a less-expensive-but-still-pricey cloud gaming subscription.

My original plan was to heap my PC full of hand-me-down, used, and last-gen parts to get the best deal I could. Currently, even older selections of DDR4 RAM sticks as small as 16GB cost close to $110, whereas the same component sat at $50 as recently as September. Newer DDR5 sticks now cost five times as much. And it’s only going to get worse. On Wednesday, Micron, which owns the major DRAM (dynamic random access memory) brand Crucial, announced it made the “difficult decision†to kill its consumer-facing brand altogether. Sumit Sadana, Micron’s chief business officer, made it clear this was to focus on fulfilling the insatiable demand for memory from AI data centers.

Micron held 25.7% of the DRAM market share by the time it exited the scene, according to TrendForce data. The next biggest player, Nanya, held 1.1%. There are few scenarios where this doesn’t impact the price of computer parts even more. So where does that leave gamers who were too late upgrading their PC or who find they need new hardware to play their games? I hate to say it, but there are options for those with solid home internet connections and a willingness to remain beholden to a subscription service.

Cloud gaming is getting better, little by little

Last month, Xbox claimed the number of playtime hours on its Game Pass Cloud Gaming service was up 45% year over year. That 45% comes specifically from cloud streaming on consoles, but the service was seeing 26% more playtime on “other devices.†Xbox didn’t break down how big a portion “other devices†made up PC, or perhaps former PC gamers. Earlier this year, Xbox raised the price of its Game Pass Ultimate subscription from $20 to $30 a month. At the same time, it gave access to cloud gaming for people spending $15 or $10 for lower tiers on select titles. The service can now stream games up to 1440p resolutions as well.

The uptick in playtime may be related to recent games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 coming out on Game Pass, though that can’t be the whole story. Gamers are looking for the best deal, and even a more expensive subscription service will be far cheaper than high-end 64GB RAM that costs close to $800 from some brands. For PC gamers who want to play their own games, the other option is to pay for GeForce Now. Nvidia recently updated its subscription service to enable some games to run on a more recent Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU instead of an older RTX 4080 Super or RTX 4080. You have to pay $20 a month to access that feature as well as 4K streaming.

Not all games will run on the RTX 5080. Nvidia has added more over time; most recently titles like Enshrouded and Fallout 76. Nvidia also lets subscribers play a few extra games that don’t appear on GeForce Now’s supported list through the Install-to-Play feature. You can rent out extra server space for a few more bucks a month to have instantaneous access to those games.

I’ve used both Game Pass and GeForce Now extensively enough to know that streaming is not a 1-to-1 replacement for a PC. Even with fast internet speeds and low latency, there is a distinct difference in visual quality between games that are rendered on-device and those streamed over the internet, even at 1440p or 4K. Anybody who used to be a native PC gamer will recognize the quality difference after a mere few minutes of play. And PC gamers are rarely the type to accept such tradeoffs.

Will cheaper PC/console hybrids save us?

These PC component price hikes will inevitably price out some gamers. While we hope that we’ll see more relatively inexpensive (though still costly) PC gaming devices like the Steam Machine, we can’t hold out hope that gaming-ready laptops won’t demand extra cost.

Crucial was busy posting ads for its gaming-ready SSDs (solid state drives) as recently as the day prior to the company’s announcement. Events are moving fast, and we won’t have time to blink before the news gets worse. Market analyst firm TrendForce reported Micron was the number three DRAM supplier in the world, behind SK Hynix and Samsung. Those two companies are similarly retooling their business to focus on making memory for AI data centers. Transcend, another major consumer-end memory maker, wrote to customers in a notice shared online that Samsung and Sandisk delayed their latest shipments of NAND, which is used for flash memory. Transcend has been without NAND supply since October.

“The situation worsened in Q4 due to increased demand from large data centers and hyperscalers driven by major cloud service providers’ expansion plans. All major chip manufacturers are prioritizing supply for these customers, which has led to price increases and extremely… pic.twitter.com/q5Wp6N38dm

— Jukan (@jukan05) December 3, 2025

These major tech brands have hinted the run on DRAM prices may last well past 2028. Korean language news site Hankyung reported Samsung and SK Hynix are both imagining their focus on AI data centers will last through the start of 2028. That sounds like magical thinking, but it shows just how willing memory makers are to leave the PC industry in the cold. Which means the consumer is going to need some alternatives, and soon.