Sony stops delivery of memory cards

Since March 27, 2026, Sony will no longer accept orders from resellers for a large part of its memory cards in SD and CF-Express Type A or B formats. The cards can also no longer be ordered directly by consumers from Sony's own online shop. The company cites a global shortage of memory modules and other semiconductors as the reason. The global memory crisis, triggered by the rapid construction of AI data centers, has now also reached photographers and filmmakers. This week, Sony had already increased the price of the Playstation 5.

As the company writes in its announcement, it intends to temporarily suspend ordering options only. Sony does not state when this measure might be lifted. It will be announced on the product pages of the cards if necessary, it says. Sony's announcement does not explicitly state that production has been discontinued – but this is likely if the necessary components, especially flash memory chips, are not available. These have been bought up by hyperscalers for months at almost any price, and market observers expect a price increase of 60 percent in the first quarter of 2026, which is expected to continue. Prices for SSDs with NAND flash have already doubled to tripled since the fall of 2025.

Sony lists almost its entire range of memory cards as no longer available. These include the CF-Express cards of the "Tough" series in Type A with capacities from 240 to 1920 GByte and the Type B cards with 240 and 480 GByte. The same applies to SDXC and SDHC cards of the Tough series from 128 to 512 GByte and other SD cards from other series. A single CF-Express-B card of the Tough series with 960 GByte and the slowest SD series with the abbreviation "SF-UZ" have not yet been mentioned. It is unclear whether this is an oversight.

Memory cards already twice as expensive in some cases

According to heise price comparison, the Sony cards, which are now suspended, are still readily available from European distributors and have not become significantly more expensive – that could soon change. Other memory cards, such as the popular Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-I with 128 GByte (starting from 32,90 €), have become more than twice as expensive since their lowest prices in the summer of 2025. The same applies to most Micro-SD cards, which are used in smartphones, tablets, and drones, and can also be used in larger cameras via an adapter.

For photographers and filmmakers with the latest cameras, the foreseeable poor availability of CF-Express cards can become a problem. The high burst rates of up to 120 fps in RAW format on the Sony A9 III can only be achieved with PCI-Express-based cards. The same applies to current cameras from other manufacturers. The fast memory is also increasingly popular in film production for quick material backup on set.

(nie)