It looks like Microsoft is on its way to boosting the manufacturing of its Xbox hardware. According to a new report by Reuters, hardware manufacturers Foxconn and Luxshare have plans to build up the gaming hardware manufacturing capabilities of Vietnam. The report comes courtesy of documents that have been submitted to local authorities.
As part of these expansion plans, Foxconn subsidiary Fushan Technology is trying to get a permit to boost its production capabilities. Interestingly, this production will revolve almost entirely around Xbox gaming devices, and the company is aiming to make an additional 4.8 million of them on a yearly basis. The manufacturing plans also involve console parts and unspecified electromagnetic devices.
Similarly, Luxshare-ICT is also looking to boost its production of gaming consoles by up to 4.5 million units a year through a factory in Vietnam. The company’s plans are slated to start next year, according to the report.
It is worth noting that, alongside boosting the manufacturing capabilities for consoles, these companies are also keeping an eye on outputting even more hardware when it comes to mobile phones and smart wearables. These efforts have led to upgrades to a factory, according to Fushan.
Interestingly, the fact that the production boost seemingly applies to Xbox gaming devices rather than strictly consoles indicates that we might also see a manufacturing boost for the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handheld gaming PCs. This boost in production comes in the shadow of a shortage of DRAM in the tech industry, however.
This shortage of memory modules has already been contributing to prices for RAM shooting up all over the world. Recent rumours have indicated that the shortage will also likely end up affecting costs of consoles – namely the Xbox Series X/S, the price tag of which is expected to go all the way up to $649.99.
The memory shortage has been attributed to tech company OpenAI having recently announced that it had secured around 900,000 DRAM wafers on a monthly basis thanks to its deals with Samsung and SK Hynix. The report noted that, while companies have since been scrambling to get their hands on as many memory modules as they can so as to not affect their own production, Microsoft has not made preparations for this possibility.
“They didn’t plan ahead at all, apparently,” said YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead. “If you still want an Xbox for some reason at their current pricing, those prices could go up soon, or supply could entirely dry up because multiple sources of mine have apparently been warned by sales reps at Microsoft that this is going to affect the Xbox Series consoles very, very soon. Sooner rather than later.”
The report also indicates that Sony has seemingly protected itself from running out of memory for the time being thanks to the company having already purchased quite a bit of RAM when the prices hadn’t yet shot up. The company expected to be fine for a few months thanks to its reserves of GDDR6 memory modules.
