It's An Active Choice to Lie This Much | Micron's "Commitment" to Gamers

Micron just posted record growth in its data center segment for memory at 257% year-over-year. But it also has higher

year-over-year. But it also has higher margin now. And because it has higher

margin now. And because it has higher profit margin, that is being extended to consumer as we've been talking about where the consumer segment is paying more for the privilege to buy the memory

that gets left behind by the data centers. We talked as well about how we

centers. We talked as well about how we think they're probably going to be reducing the supply availability to their B2B customers who make memory for consumers so they can shift that to data centers as well. But there's new

information about Micron's financials that we can dig into today. And there's

also some other news in the industry about this. A new IDC report is

about this. A new IDC report is forecasting an 8% climb in completed PC prices in 2026, directly tied to memory supply reallocation to data center.

Whatever you pay for a computer, add at least 8% to that. But if you're an enthusiast and you need more memory it's probably worse. It's also

forecasting a contraction of 4.9% to 8.9% in PC market sales. Tom's Hardware

published a tweet from PC builder Paradox Customs that noted the company will begin selling RAMless computers so you can BYO memory if you have existing sticks in your possession. Of course

we're still looking forward to when you can BYO VRAM. The register, meanwhile cites analyst firm Tech Insights as dismissing the usual cyclical cadence that align with a draw down in price for

2026 or 2027, estimating instead that this time the memory elevated prices may remain for longer. Micron's drastic

growth and high margins with AI are why it can justify releasing new crucial memory on October 21st and then killing the brand on December 3rd. In Micron's

October 21st press release for its then brand new DDR5 Pro overclocking 6400 CL32 memory posted just 43 days before it killed The Division, Micron said it

was committed to gamers two times in one paragraph. Micron said that its new

paragraph. Micron said that its new high-end memory deepened Micron's commitment to gamers and quote cements Crucial's commitment to PC gamers. End

quote. They also said, quote, "Crucial a brand of Micron Technology Incorporated, is deepening its commitment to gamers with the debut of Crucial DDR5 Pro OC 6400 CL32 gaming

DRAM." And quote, "It wrote this about a

DRAM." And quote, "It wrote this about a month before killing the brand entirely." So, like the cake, the

entirely." So, like the cake, the commitment was a lie. Micron's

commitment here lasted a little over a month. They had to have known what was

month. They had to have known what was coming down the pipe in December when they posted this October announcement of their brand new kid memory. was the last thing out the door. And because they

almost certainly had to have known, that means that we think someone made an active decision to deceive consumers by talking about commitment to a brand and

then killing it. That is like it's an active choice to lie that much. I I

refuse to accept that there's any other possibility. Memory manufacturer Micron

possibility. Memory manufacturer Micron began 2025 by introducing new crucial memory and storage products and ended the year by killing them because selling AI products for data centers makes stock

line go up. In fact, Micron stock line went up so much that Micron tripled its market cap to over $300 billion for the year. We've already covered a lot of

year. We've already covered a lot of this story in our new I guess WTF series of videos about RAM prices and then

about Micron and then about Nvidia. But

it turns out there's still more to talk about with memory prices and they are continuing to worsen affecting anybody who buys modern electronics, not just gamers. Although people who build

gamers. Although people who build high-end PCs in our audience certainly are feeling the effects. If you buy say 64 GB of memory for workstation type uses and you're faced with $800 to

$1,000 kits of memory or if you buy 32 GB and you're looking at the high $300 $400 range, $500 range for some of these depending on the spec you're going with.

So, it's affecting this audience pretty heavily, but it also affects everybody.

Before that, this video is brought to you by Height and their X50 case lineup including the glass and air versions.

The X50 and X50 Air cases have a unique rounded design with a heavy focus on large ventilation ports in spite of the curvature of the chassis panels. The X50

and X50 Air use relatively thick stamped metals for many of the case components and have fan mount locations front side, bottom, and back with the top supporting a power supply in traditional top-mounted rear exhaust. The X50 series

tested overall positively in our review benchmarks and made waves for its unique look, including multiple different colors, although the case also comes in traditional black and white coloring.

Learn more at the link in the description below. PC system integrator

description below. PC system integrator Cyberpower said RAM prices had increased by 500% and that SSD prices have increased by 100% since the reference point. Mangar will likely have to

point. Mangar will likely have to increase prices due to the RAM shortage.

Lenovo is stockpiling memory chips which will lead to increased prices due to less memory on the market because obviously Dell said that it had never seen memory prices increase so quickly

and is expected to raise its own prices next year. GSkill, primarily a consumer

next year. GSkill, primarily a consumer memory brand, warned consumers about rising prices due to AI demand and even said, quote, "Purchasers should be mindful of the pricing before purchasing." End quote. You know, it's

purchasing." End quote. You know, it's good when the company selling the stuff is like, "This is not a good deal. You

really shouldn't buy from us right now."

And although the normal scalpers are being outdone by the corporate scalpers right now, of course, the scalpers too are benefiting selling RAM kits on eBay at huge markups. Further, market

analysis firm Trend Force predicts that smartphones and laptops will cost more and will have worse specifications going forward. In that sense, it is

forward. In that sense, it is effectively literally shrinkflation. The

spec is regressing to prior years, but the price is going up. Its table sites a transition down from 12 GB DRAM smartphones to 8 GB in the mid-range and

from 8 GB to 4 GB at entry level. And

with notebook shipments projected to shift towards 8 gigabytes primarily. Our

technology is regressing. Trendforce

also expects fewer console sales next year due to the RAM shortage. Projecting

demand growth as dropping from 1.7% for notebooks to minus 2.4% from 0.1% and phones to minus 2.0% and from minus 3.5%

in consoles to minus 4.4%. These changes

again are due to the AI and data center demand and growth and the metastasis of this that has caused the exorbitant pricing in consumer as the cancer cells

of AI and data center have broken free and sort of infected everything within the electronics market and industry. Uh

hardware manufacturers are shifting their production to focus on AI products while reducing supply of consumer goods like GPUs. We just talked about that in

like GPUs. We just talked about that in the Nvidia what the [ __ ] piece that you can find on the channel. It's not news to anyone that when supply goes down the cost is going to go up for consumers if people still want that thing. Of

course, now the story is broader than Micron, but Micron has kept consumer memory, pricing, at least, somewhat, stable historically thanks to its first party

supply consumer sticks of memory that you can buy uh and their DRAM solution.

And this is no longer the case. All

Micron cares about right now is, you guessed it, we've got a we've got a reel for you >> of, AI, to, AI, thin, AI, data, centers,, AI

enabled phones, AI PCs, AI driven by of course AI for AI systems to generative AI, AI for AI and AI AI experiences.

>> The, tech, CEO, mind, virus, continues, to spread and infect all of them. Now

years ago, Micron actually did seem to care about consumers. They don't now obviously. It's like they they care so

obviously. It's like they they care so little about them that they just decided to not even sell them. Uh, but just as a reference point, the company once used

Team Liquid, as in the group known for esports, primarily like Starcraft. Uh

they used Team Liquid's ad agency to buy ad campaigns for their consumer memory.

at included with us on GN where they bought ad campaigns for Micron uh Crucial branded memory and uh so they're

hiring an esports group to buy ads from Gamers Nexus. This is years and years

Gamers Nexus. This is years and years ago at this point. This is a long time ago. Uh it was for high-spec memory at

ago. Uh it was for high-spec memory at the time. I remember it was relatively

the time. I remember it was relatively affordable for what they were selling versus some alternatives in the market.

And it seemed well positioned. And it

seemed like they were really trying to kind of break into the gaming market get noticed by the gaming user base. And

it was interesting because at that time I remember the conversations being that they were specifically trying to establish the brand as a uh consumer enthusiast oriented brand, not just a

sort of boring enterprise brand, which is interesting because now they would really prefer to just be a boring enterprise brand. They want to distance

enterprise brand. They want to distance themselves from all that loser consumer gaming [ __ ] uh and move to AI, which is really just me saying I I do think

that obviously at the end of the day it's all about money and who will buy the most of the thing from the company.

But they really did seem like they were targeting the enthusiast gaming and normal end user audience and trying to distance themselves from boring enterprise while still maintaining sales there. Uh but there's more money to be

there. Uh but there's more money to be made elsewhere today. Micron just made $13.6 $6 billion in the last quarter due to data centers hoovering up all the memory chip supply. And Micron, famous

for boom and bust cycles, wants the AI boom to last indefinitely. Thanks to

Micron's lucrative partnership with Nvidia, billiondoll government incentives, certainly not at all related to its contributions to the inauguration and the ballroom, and thanks to a global

frenzy to build and power AI data centers as fast as possible, Micron has gone allin on AI. So consistent with everything else in 2025 and it's looking

like now 2026 with the projected price increase on computers in total uh we are all paying an AI tax on everything sometimes literally uh and memory is just another example of that. So we have

a full piece on the memory twice now that situation but it's still developing usual quick background as we get into this. There are three major memory

this. There are three major memory suppliers. There's a couple others but

suppliers. There's a couple others but they're not really relevant here. It's

SKH Highix and Samsung in South Korea and then Micron. These three control effectively all of the global DRAM supply, some of the other stuff they make as well. Uh, and they don't have many competitors. Now, there are some

many competitors. Now, there are some new upandcomers who are not typically factored into the pie charts you'll see of distribution because they're in China. So, CXMT Choning Memory

China. So, CXMT Choning Memory Technologies is one of the most relevant that's kind of starting to break into it. They're making DDR5. Uh, it looks

it. They're making DDR5. Uh, it looks like they might actually gain some ground and get a foothold. So, there's

some new up and covers, but we're not talking about them today. We'll cover

them in a separate piece. There's some

new information though. So, we'll start with Micron's annual earnings where uh there's been two reports we want to talk about. Micron's financials, though, show

about. Micron's financials, though, show why it's obsessed with AI like every other company that is managing to uh grift and rip off either other companies or governments at this point for

whatever it is they say they're trying to do. And we'll start with Micron's

to do. And we'll start with Micron's last annual earnings report. Micron

revealed its fourth quarter earnings in September when it ended its fiscal year 25 fiscal year. For its fiscal year Micron generated $ 37.4 4 billion in revenue, including 11.3 billion in the

fourth quarter. Micron's revenue

fourth quarter. Micron's revenue increased by 49% year-over-year, driven by significant increases in AI demand.

Micron's DRAM products accounted for 76% of its total revenue for the fiscal year, while NAND products took in 23% of revenue. NAND is what's used in SSDs for

revenue. NAND is what's used in SSDs for nonvolatile storage, and those prices are also starting to go up. We've talked

about that though. Macro trends data shows how Micron has benefited from the AI data center buildout. Micron has

grown significantly in the last year with its revenue reaching new heights.

Micron noted, quote, "In our March 2024 earnings call, we said that we expect Micron, to, be, one, of the, biggest beneficiaries of AI in the semiconductor industry and that we expect to deliver record revenue and significantly

improved profitability in fiscal 2025."

End quote. Micron knew already that its short-term highest profit would come from data center and AI enterprise, and they positioned themselves for that.

Micron has four business units. Cloud

memory core data center mobile and client and automotive and embedded. The

cloud memory business unit focuses on quote memory solutions for large hyperscale cloud customers and HBM for all data center customers end quote. Its

core data center business unit includes the company's quote memory solutions for mid-tier cloud enterprise and OEM data center customers and storage solutions for all data center customers. End

quote. Micron's mobile and client business unit includes its client products including the crucial brand.

Micron's cloud memory business unit includes its HBM or high bandwidth memory which we just talked about a lot in our Nvidia what the [ __ ] piece. These

products are those that are closely connected to Nvidia. At GTC in March Micron announced that its HBM 3 products are used in Nvidia's Hopper and Blackwell systems and underscored quote

Micron's critical role in accelerating AI workloads. End quote. The year prior

AI workloads. End quote. The year prior Micron announced that HBM would be used in Nvidia's H200 GPUs. The Nvidia H200 GPUs are the very same ones that the US

government just said it would allow Nvidia to sell into China, even though the H200s were previously banned for export. Demand for Micron to HBM is

export. Demand for Micron to HBM is directly tied to Nvidia's demand for AIGPUs and its ability to make more of them and sell more of them. So adding

China back into it, if China will even take the GPUs this time, there's been some back and forth we've talked about with that. Uh that would also increase

with that. Uh that would also increase the sales for Micron because the two are directly linked. Micron's cloud memory

directly linked. Micron's cloud memory business unit grew by 257% year-over-year. In just one year, the

year-over-year. In just one year, the company's core memory business went from about $3.8 billion to $13.5 billion in revenue. That's almost $10

billion more in revenue in 12 months.

Micron said, quote, HBM revenues reached a new quarterly record end quote in the quarter. Micron's core data business

quarter. Micron's core data business unit didn't grow as much, but still increased by 45% year-over-year from about $5 billion in revenue to over $7 billion. Meanwhile, the company's mobile

billion. Meanwhile, the company's mobile and client revenue grew by 2% over the same period. Micron's mobile and client

same period. Micron's mobile and client business made about 11.9 billion in revenue for fiscal year 25. Overall

Micron's revenue attributed to AI and cloud memory skyrocketed, while its mobile and client revenue hardly increased compared to its prior fiscal year. Although some of this is of course

year. Although some of this is of course a feedback loop caused by moving supply and focus to AI. Micron has made memory supply for other consumerf facing memory

stick manufacturers to buy for basically its entire existence and it has run crucial as a brand for 30 years now which is the consumerf facing first

party memory that they sold and in a single year the company makes more revenue from its cloud memory business than its mobile and client segment and

it snuffs it out. Micron's margins are also higher for AI products compared to the consumer segment. Micron's cloud

memory business had an operating margin of 48% in the fourth quarter. The mobile

and client businesses had an operating margin of 29%. So, it's no wonder that they also started to drag the consumerf facing margin up. We'll talk about that.

Speaking of Crucial's new memory, PC part picker shows that Micron's new Crucial DDR5 Crucial Pro overclocking 32 GB DDR5 6400 CL32 memory climbed from

$175 to 322 bucks since its launch in October, nearly doubling in price.

Checking this during editing, but after initial writing, we actually see it's actively testing the $350 price point now. The product sold out at Best Buy

now. The product sold out at Best Buy and B&H at the time of original writing.

Amazon has the crucial overclocking memory available though for $440 representing a 2 and a halfx increase since October. If you brought that to

since October. If you brought that to any financial adviser, they would tell you that you're a damn genius for investing in such a quickly appreciating asset. When Micron killed Crucial, it

asset. When Micron killed Crucial, it said that the decision quote reflects Micron's commitment to its ongoing portfolio transformation and the resulting alignment of its business to secular profitable growth vectors in

memory and storage. End quote. And like

we've said previously, they're going to need some Dramamine for that spin because they're so committed to consumer memory that they're killing it. Again

Micron launched its latest crucial DDR5 memory and then killed the brand in 43 days. Micron doesn't care about

days. Micron doesn't care about consumers. Micron wants to raise its

consumers. Micron wants to raise its stock price and milk the AI infrastructure bubble while collecting billions of dollars in federal and state incentives and in tax breaks. But

getting into some of the newer material there's another earnings report which is from December. So two weeks after taking

from December. So two weeks after taking Crucial out to pastor after after sending Crucial to a farm in upstate New York, Micron released its latest

earnings for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. Uh Micron is positioning

year 2026. Uh Micron is positioning itself as what they call a quote essential AI enabler. Now we're getting the the corporate buzzwords in there

too. While making 13.6 6 billion in

too. While making 13.6 6 billion in revenue during the quarter, a 57% year-over-year increase. On the post

year-over-year increase. On the post earnings call, Micron said the memory shortage isn't even close to being done.

>> We, are, um, in, a, very, interesting environment where the aggregate demand

for both DM and NAND is substantially higher um than the ability to supply to it. Not just from a Micron perspective

it. Not just from a Micron perspective but you know even at a aggregate industry level.

>> Micron's, cloud, memory, business, made $5.28 billion again topping its mobile and client business unit which made $4.25 billion. Micron's margins

$4.25 billion. Micron's margins increased across all four of its product groups. And Micron is putting its

groups. And Micron is putting its government subsidies and tax incentives to work by increasing its capital expenditures to $20 billion over the fiscal year. But of course, this is

fiscal year. But of course, this is primarily to cover its HBM supply, not consumer stuff. Even Micron said that

consumer stuff. Even Micron said that it's quote more than sold out end quote.

>> The, demand, on, us, is, so, much, higher, than the supply that even you know small increases in supply are not going to be

able to make a dent in that demand. So

we are you know more than sold out. That

means >> the, company, also, said, it, expects, new financial records for its current fiscal year thanks to the surge in AI infrastructure spending. So basically

infrastructure spending. So basically don't expect any change in Micron's plans. Now we've already talked about

plans. Now we've already talked about where we think this is going. We've got

a couple pieces up on that. But the two big ones are the WTF just happened one about Micron and this is the follow-up to that and the Nvidia WTF piece. Uh and

you know the our thoughts are kind of in those conclusions and I would really encourage you to watch them if you haven't seen them. But fewer options usually means higher prices. There's

maybe a little bit of an asterisk there which is if nobody can afford anything anyway, they might not buy stuff. And so

maybe there's some eb and flow there.

But I sincerely do think, as we've said in the last two pieces, that right now if you stop buying, they don't [ __ ] care. It's like, you don't want it. All

care. It's like, you don't want it. All

right, fine. We made this for you. All

you're not happy. Okay, we'll we'll sell it to them instead. I kind of think that's what this plays out as right now.

And uh it is a famously cartelike industry memory where like

actual branches of government have called it a cartel in the past as we talked about uh and they've been tried multiple times and taken to court multiple times and actually GN we have

an article that is cited in one of the antitrust lawsuits that Micron was being sued for at the time. Uh, so this is not news that they engage in anti-consumer

behaviors. It's just, you know, what's

behaviors. It's just, you know, what's it in the open? It's kind like, was it still collusion and price fixing if they're just talking about it publicly and maybe not, but the market is obsessed with AI. AI revolves around

Nvidia. Nvidia darling Micron is driving

Nvidia. Nvidia darling Micron is driving memory industry decisions now. So, we

would not be surprised if SK Highix and Samsung uh seeing Micron's decision on Crucial and now seeing the new earnings report put something out of their own where they're like, we're actually also going to move supply over. Losing that

option for consumer hardware, it's not good. The weird thing is right now what

good. The weird thing is right now what we're seeing in the news since we covered Micron last time is system integrator companies moving to BYO DRAM

BYO memory, which isn't I don't hate it.

I mean, if you have memory in your possession and uh you can reuse that, I guess it's an option. It's not thrilling because you're buying a pre-built and

then you're still doing some assembly required. Although they typically [ __ ]

required. Although they typically [ __ ] up the XMBB and the Expo stuff anyway so, maybe, it's, for, the, best,, but, at least it gives an option where you don't want to spend $500 on 32 GB of memory or something. You could still put sticks in

something. You could still put sticks in from your previous build. Uh uh what I think is potentially going to happen next and what we're starting to see on um secondhand sales for CPUs is an increase in some CPU prices. So

something to think about is that X3D in particular is better at uh sort of circumventing lower performing higher latency memory kits in terms of their

performance limitations because you're not hitting memory as often. So I I ran into a viewer not long ago locally and uh the viewer asked me, "Hey, I'm building a computer soon. I don't know if I should buy or wait. And I was like

I I don't really want to tell you to wait and then it gets better, but it does seem like it's going to get worse.

And the forecast suggests that. And the

advice I gave the viewer was, you know if you can upgrade to something like X3D and socket from nonX3D that might kind of help if you are

memory bound specifically by the spec of your memory kit, not by the capacity.

because then you might be able to kind of make up for some of those differences just by the fact that if you look at any of our old benchmarks of memory uh speeds when it's on an X3D part, it's

not as impactful as nonX3D. And that's

simply because you just don't hit it as much and you can stay within the cache of the CPU for more of the operations that you're running. So more the transactions stay local to the CPU and

its cache. So that's something to think

its cache. So that's something to think about as kind of like a an option. Um

it doesn't solve the problem if you need more capacity. Uh, I noticed when people

more capacity. Uh, I noticed when people were asking me for recommendations on pre-builts they can buy for their kids and stuff for uh, Christmas and holidays that a lot of the pre-builts now are moving towards 16 gigabytes where

previously they were 32 presumably because otherwise the price of the pre-built is completely untenable and nonviable for people or they just the the general market hasn't yet uh, heard

about the memory situation and would just think they're getting ripped off because they are but for different reasons maybe. So anyway, that's kind of

reasons maybe. So anyway, that's kind of the update. This was more of, you know

the update. This was more of, you know we we ran through their their reports and found some interesting conflicting statements. So there you go. We got more

statements. So there you go. We got more coming up. As always, subscribe for

coming up. As always, subscribe for more. Go to store.gamersex.net to help

more. Go to store.gamersex.net to help us out directly or patreon.com/gamersex.

and we'll see you all next time.