Hardware recap of the week: OpenAI, DRAM cartel, GTA 6, and end of PlayStation discs.

Big week in hardware and gaming. Between OpenAI offering participation to the U.S. government, an antitrust lawsuit against memory manufacturers, Lenovo jokingly saying that RAM prices will never go down, GTA 6 announcing its prices (spoiler: it's steep), and PlayStation dropping physical support... We cover it all.

According to the Financial Times (reported by Reuters, reported by Yahoo, reported by us), OpenAI would have proposed to the US government to take a 5% stake in the company. And not just for them: OpenAI suggests that other AI companies do the same.

The timing is not insignificant. The Trump administration has already bought nearly 10% of Intel, then Nvidia bought 4-5% of what should be its direct competitor, boosting the value of what the government had just bought. Convenient.

An analyst from Forrester quoted by Reuters sums it up well: a pre-IPO government participation would reduce investors' fears about regulation. Basically, if the government holds shares in your company, it is less inclined to regulate you. The number decreases and that's not good for them.

Nobody wants the economy to collapse under their presidency. And with an AI bubble threatening to burst, continuing to inject money keeps it inflated a little longer. Ideally, you push the bursting on the following administration. It's a rescue plan before the rescue, in a way.

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On June 25, 17 plaintiffs sued the three memory giants: Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. The accusation: price fixing and illegal DRAM pricing. Again.

The complaint of over 100 pages alleges that the three manufacturers coordinated a shift towards HBM while simultaneously reducing the production of traditional DRAM to drive up prices. The document is quite straightforward about this.

Quote from the complaint: "The DRAM oligopolists simultaneously reduced production, coordinated a pivot towards HBM, abandoned DDR3 and DDR4, and otherwise decreased and locked the supply of conventional DRAM as prices soared at a staggering scale and pace."

Another excerpt that hits hard: "Since 2022, these companies have set the supply and prices of DRAM, engaging in conduct that makes no economic sense without collusion, and has driven up the price of conventional DRAM by about 700% in 4 years."

700%. In four years. When Micron reduced its wafer starts by 20% in October 2022, Samsung and SK Hynix made similar cuts at the same time. In a normal market, when a competitor reduces its production, others take advantage to capture the demand. Here, the opposite happened each time.

As a reminder, the U.S. Department of Justice had already imposed over 731 million dollars in fines on members of the DRAM cartel in 2006. It was the DoJ that used the word "cartel," not us. And Micron had received leniency for ratting out the two Korean companies. The plaintiffs are seeking treble damages in the Northern California court.

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At ISC 2026 in Germany, Lenovo stated that DRAM and NAND prices are unlikely to return to last year's levels. The translated quote from ComputerBase: "Even after the implementation of a significantly increased production capacity, prices will probably never fall back to the level observed a year ago."

Lenovo used the word "never" while laughing, apparently. Funny. When you are a company that helps maintain high prices, saying that normal consumers will no longer be able to afford RAM at a fair price is not exactly subtle humor.

In parallel, Samsung and SK Hynix plan a fabs construction program estimated at around 800,000 trillion won, or 518 billion dollars New factories in the southwest of South Korea. Except that the first ones will only be operational between 2028-2030, and they will target data center and AI customers as a priority, not the consumer.

An industry insider confided to Gamers Nexus: "Nvidia, AMD and Intel could take 100% of TSMC's production capacity and it wouldn't cover half of our needs." In short, even with the new fabs, AI demand absorbs everything and prices remain high for us.

AMD relaunched the 5800X3D on June 25th. It's still the same 8-core/16-thread processor with V-Cache, one of the best gaming CPUs ever tested on AM4. The relaunch price: $350, which is $100 less than the original price in 2022.

The catch: the original manufacturing process is no longer available. AMD had to modify the bonding to produce it on a current technology. On paper, the performances should be identical, but differences could appear in thermal or power consumption.

Result? Sold out in 15 minutes at most retailers according to NotebookCheck. And now scalpers are reselling it for up to $750. Twice the launch price. For a 4-year-old CPU.

AMD says it wants to continue mass production, so stock should improve. But it's a bit ironic: AMD is contributing to the rise in silicon prices on modern platforms, and the best way to capitalize on people who can't afford DDR5 is to sell them DDR4 chips for their aging AM4 systems. Opportunistic? Perhaps. Anyway, that's how it looks.

Rockstar has finally announced the prices of GTA 6. The standard edition is priced at $80. The Ultimate Edition goes up to $100 and unlocks exclusive cars, tattoos, guns, clothing, and hairstyles. Plus an exclusive mission. A game about car theft that makes you pay extra to paint virtual cars in special colors. The irony is almost too perfect.

And physical copies? They exist, but without the game on them. The boxes contain a piece of paper with a download code. The real theft may be the purchase itself.

Scheduled release date: November 19, 2026 More than 13 years after the first launch of GTA 5, if all goes well. MarketWatch quotes an expert (Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus) who is worried: The real concern is that GTA is a force that influences the PC gaming market and gaming in general. There is a real risk that it will push prices up overall.

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In the wake, Sony announces that all games released after January 2028 will be digital-only. No more disc version. The press release talks about "response to consumer preference trends" and "natural direction to align with how most of the community prefers to access games".

Translation: no more resale of used games, each purchase stays within the Sony ecosystem. And too bad for those who do not have a reliable high-speed connection, or who simply like to own what they buy.

We are approaching a future where you will no longer be able to take your console out of the closet in 15 years to replay your games out of nostalgia. Something that can still be done with an Atari 2600 or an NES, but that is disappearing. On PC at least, between Steam, GOG, and... other methods, we still have access to games even without a disc. On console, it's a different story.

Sony's blog eventually asks, "Did you like it?" with a clickable heart emoji. One comment sums up the atmosphere: "It's like watching the wedding video after the divorce."

Representative Brett Guthrie introduced the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act. 115 pages that combine several Internet-related bills, officially to "protect children and teenagers online, empower parents and strengthen families, and for other purposes." This "for other purposes" does a lot of work in this sentence.

The text says not to require identity verification. But it also prohibits platforms from showing ads for alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or gambling to minors. How can you know if a user is a minor without verifying their identity? The text creates enough legal liability for the simplest solution for platforms to be to collect identity documents. It's a Schrodinger's identity verification: not technically mandatory, but inevitable in practice.

And if platforms do not comply, violations are treated as offenses under the Federal Trade Commission Act. What pushes everyone towards collecting IDs without the government officially having to impose it. Clever.

According to the complaint filed on June 25, 2026, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix would have coordinated production cuts and a shift towards HBM (high-bandwidth memory for AI), reducing the supply of traditional DRAM. Prices would have risen by about 700% in 4 years. At the same time, AI demand is exploding and absorbing the new production capacity.

Official release date: November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series. The standard edition costs $80, the Ultimate Edition $100. No PC version announced for launch. Physical copies contain only a download code, no game disc.

It's still an excellent gaming CPU for AM4. But at $350 for a 4-year-old processor on a DDR4 platform, it's debatable. If you already have an AM4 system, it can be justified. If you're starting from scratch, an AM5 or LGA 1851 platform will probably be more relevant in the long term, even if DDR5 RAM is more expensive.

Yes. Sony has confirmed that all games released after January 2028 will be exclusively digital. The disc reader will still be able to play games released before this date, but no new title will have a physical version.