Things aren’t looking great when it comes to the ongoing RAM and storage shortages, and the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is being hit with a price increase in Japan that may or may not extend to other territories.

The current tech drama kickstarted by the AI and data centre boom is already altering Sony and Nintendo’s plans for hardware in the coming years, with Microsoft likely missing the big console generation refresh next year too. Even worse, prices are expected to keep surging as stock dwindles and hardware production stalls or greatly slows down. It’s bad, it’ll get way worse, and no one knows when things might get better.

Now, via VGC, we’re learning about the ROG Xbox Ally X situation in Japan. As spotted by the site Otaku Souken, the ROG Xbox Ally X is upping its price tag to ¥169,800 ($1,109) vs. the previous ¥139,800 ($913) mark. That’s a whopping $196 increase. The standard ROG Xbox Ally seemingly isn’t altering its ¥89,800 ($585) price, however.

An official reason for the price increase hasn’t been shared yet, but everyone is thinking about the same thing pending confirmation; as pointed out by VGC, the RAM on the big Xbox Ally is faster than the regular model’s. With the more expensive model now almost doubling the price of the regular one, it’ll be quite interesting to see how both perform in the Japanese market in the coming months. As a reminder, Xbox products have never been too big over there, so this probably won’t go down well.

The difficult situation has also forced Valve to delay the release (originally planned for early 2026) of the Steam Machine and Frame, which are now expected by most enthusiasts to arrive at higher price points (though we never got official word on those with the reveal). Even worse, securing a Steam Deck is becoming harder as I write this. Thanks, Big Tech.