Holy crap what a terrible timeline we live in.

Everyone knows that prices for components have been increasing thanks to tariffs and AI demand but this is ridiculous.

I have been tracking expanded storage options for my Switch and PS5 over the last year or so. A 1 TB card for the Switch used to run about $99, now I'm seeing $160 minimum.

A 2TB SSD with built in heatsink compatible with the PS5 was as low as $180 a few months ago and I thought that was steep. Today the lowest I'm seeing is $330.

My Switch issue is not so pressing but I would still like to upgrade my memory card, even before I eventually buy a Switch 2.

The PS5 situation however is ridiculous. You get less than 700GB of usable storage on the standard launch model. I am tired of constantly deleting and redownloading just a handful of games. Especially when certain games like COD just take up way more space than is reasonable.

This is actually one of the reasons I like the streaming options that come with PS Plus Premium. I can just stream certain games without having to worry about space on my drive. Well my subscription just ran out and I renewed only at the Essential level, which does not offer streaming.

I'm torn between biting the bullet in fear that prices may continue to rise or just holding out for things to normalize. 

Either way, I feel we consumers are screwed. 

Yeah, its ridiculous. I bought my PS5 Slim with 1TB like 18 months ago and already have to delete games to make room for new ones several times. My Switch 2 is filling up as well, but at least that doesnt have mandatory installs for physical games, so Im not in a hurry there.

Developers really need to start thinking about storage management in their games. I am tried of games that force multiple-language installs and there are so many advanced compression methods with minimal loss that we need to see more of that. Hell, that's one of the main advantage of AI - we are seeing Deep Learning assisted compression techniques. 

Very, very, very few games should be >50 GB, in my opinion. Mostly AAA level MMO's or games with large amounts of DLC. 

I think one of the things we're observing in this decade is that the idea of depending on hardware growth (especially when it comes to memory, which doesn't follow Moore's Law) isn't enough. Software techniques need to be used. 

Better start getting comfortable with the idea of deleting/re-downloading. Either that or going retro.

Damn. Didn't notice how it'd all gone up. Must have been pretty recent because in November I was looking for SD card and it wasn't this bad.

The Netac 256gb micro SD card I bought for £13 in 2024 is now £25.

Glad I bought a 1TB PCIE4 SSD for my PC back in June, was only £45. Now even the gen3 drives are £60+

Hmm, yeah I got a cheap 512Gb Samsung P9 Micro Express for $75 over the holidays down from $99. It was that price most of November/December. Looks like it's sitting at $120 now.

Well it’s a good thing I only play 1st party on my Switch systems. They take up so little storage I’m not anywhere near hitting that 256GB storage threshold on NS2 (nor on my NS1, but that has like 1TB of external storage). Holding off until memory prices go down— I have time.

Yeah I'm not sure I'll ever need an SD Express. I'm going full physical where I can and even if I do get large third party titles that are keycards (EG. Star Wars Outlaws) I'm not going to have more than a couple installed.

Currently the 256GB SD Express is holding at it's launch price of £44.99 anyway.

It would probably be a great start to start deduplicating data. I think it was done with mechanical disks to speed up read speeds, but I think (?) it's not needed with SSDs (either as much or at all). I'm not sure how common it is in the industry, but I think recently Helldivers 2 deduplicated data on PC and reduced the space requirements by a whopping 85%. If that's any indication of what developers are even somewhat commonly doing, it's utter madness out there.

Multi-language installs can be terrible too and something should definitely be done about them as well. I even have a script to remove the unneeded languages from one particular game, because they greatly increase the space requirement of the game. I'm not sure if the distribution platforms support smarter management of languages though, and that might be a part of the issue. I mean, if the platforms had easy solutions, surely they would be the standard, right?

I have 2 x SSD's (2tb total) that I only use for installing games on (and windows)... .and a 1x 2TB HDD (mechanical) that is everything else, non gaming related (where speed isn't a issue).   I do also have a few external drives, laying around, again for storage.

Why? because like OP, I noticed prices of SSD storage is nuts.
Everything you don't need on a SSD put on a HDD, its so much cheaper.

SSD's are needed for newer, more demanding games.... but space is expensive.
You need to be picky about what games you install, and remove after your done/beat them.