The RAM shortage crisis has claimed another high-profile victim. AYANEO announced it is suspending pre-orders for its flagship NEXT 2 Windows gaming handheld after storage component prices exploded following the Chinese New Year, making production financially unsustainable.
Key Takeaways
- AYANEO NEXT 2 pre-orders suspended due to RAM and SSD costs rising several times higher than pre-holiday levels.
- The handheld features a 9.06-inch OLED landscape display and up to AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor with 116Wh battery.
- Existing pre-orders will still ship starting June 2026, but new sales halted across Indiegogo and the official store.
- The RAM shortage crisis, driven by AI data center demand, has delayed multiple gaming devices including Valve Steam products.
- Top-spec NEXT 2 pre-order pricing reached $4,299, but the company was already operating at a loss per unit.
The RAM shortage crisis refers to a global spike in memory and storage component prices triggered by explosive demand from AI data center buildouts, colloquially termed “RAMaggedon.” This supply crunch is now forcing hardware manufacturers to make brutal choices: either absorb mounting losses or stop selling altogether.
How the RAM shortage crisis derailed a $4,299 gaming handheld
AYANEO’s NEXT 2 was positioned as the ultimate Windows handheld gaming experience. The device packs a 9.06-inch 2400×1500 high-refresh-rate OLED native landscape display, up to an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor built on TSMC’s 4nm process, and a massive 116Wh battery—the only handheld pairing this processor with such capacity. The company had already begun taking pre-orders at prices up to $4,299 for fully configured models.
But there was a fatal problem hiding in the spreadsheets. The company was already operating at a razor-thin margin, essentially losing money on each unit sold at the pre-order price. When storage component costs—RAM and SSDs—spiked “several times higher” than their pre-holiday levels after Chinese New Year, the math became impossible. AYANEO’s own statement on Indiegogo was blunt: “the overall cost of the product has become far higher than our current selling price. Therefore, after careful consideration, we have decided to suspend the preorders of Next 2″.
This is not a temporary pause. Existing pre-orders will still be fulfilled starting in June 2026, but the company has halted all new sales through Indiegogo and its official store. For a company that has already struggled with shipping delays and quality control issues, this suspension signals deeper structural problems than component shortages alone.
The RAM shortage crisis is reshaping the entire gaming hardware market
AYANEO is not alone in feeling the squeeze. The RAM shortage crisis has disrupted Valve’s own gaming hardware roadmap, delaying Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller launches. When even a company with Valve’s resources and manufacturing leverage cannot absorb memory cost inflation, smaller players have virtually no options.
The core culprit is the AI boom. Data center operators are hoarding memory and storage capacity to fuel large language models and neural networks, driving prices upward across every consumer hardware category. A Windows gaming handheld—inherently a niche product with modest sales volumes—cannot compete for supply against cloud infrastructure providers spending billions on AI infrastructure buildouts.
Comparatively, traditional gaming consoles and mainstream laptops have deeper pockets and longer production pipelines to weather shortages. A handheld maker betting on latest components at enthusiast price points has no such buffer. The NEXT 2’s reliance on the latest AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, while technically impressive, also means dependency on components flowing through the same supply chains starved by AI demand.
What happens to existing NEXT 2 pre-orders?
AYANEO committed to fulfilling all existing pre-orders placed before the suspension took effect. Shipments are scheduled to begin in June 2026, though the company’s track record on delivery timelines provides little confidence. The company published a 2026 Service Improvement Plan earlier this year addressing past shipping delays and quality control failures, but the NEXT 2 launch and subsequent suspension suggest those promises have not yet translated into operational reality.
New customers wanting a high-end Windows gaming handheld with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor now have limited alternatives. The ASUS ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition offers the same processor with 128GB of RAM in a convertible laptop form factor and is available at retail for significantly less money, though it sacrifices the handheld form factor and portability.
Will AYANEO return to the NEXT 2 market?
The company has not ruled out resuming pre-orders once memory and storage prices stabilize. However, AYANEO’s history suggests caution. The company has previously paused and resumed projects, and its CEO acknowledged in the 2026 Service Improvement Plan that starting new initiatives before resolving existing customer concerns would be “irresponsible”. If the RAM shortage crisis persists through 2026, the window for a profitable NEXT 2 launch may close entirely.
The broader lesson is uncomfortable: premium gaming hardware built around latest components cannot survive when those components become collateral damage in a larger infrastructure arms race. AYANEO’s suspension is a warning shot for any handheld maker betting on high-end specs in an era when AI data centers are willing to pay any price for memory and storage capacity.
This article was written with AI assistance and editorially reviewed.
Source: Windows Central
