Sony Is Temporarily Discontinuing Its Memory Cards - Here's Why

By Aaron Greenbaum
Person inserting a Sony memory card into a digital camera Sony

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Many people associate the name "Sony" with the entertainment industry. After all, Sony manufactures the PlayStation 5 and some of the best home theater systems on the market. However, Sony also produces plenty of digital cameras and associated components, including memory cards. Well, it did. Sony is temporarily suspending production due to what is currently the final boss of the electronics industry: AI.

Recently, Sony announced that it would stop taking orders for its CFexpress memory cards and SD memory cards "for the foreseeable future." The company stated it wouldn't be able to meet future demands for these products due to the "global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors." As most computer aficionados will tell you, AI data centers and associated companies have been mass-purchasing semiconductors and their necessary materials to inflate the AI bubble as quickly as possible, leaving little for the rest of us. Sony's memory cards are only the latest victims, as a few days ago, Sony decided to raise the prices of PlayStation 5 consoles because of, you guessed it, chip shortages fueled by a focus on AI.

Here is a list of all the memory cards you can no longer order from Sony:

  • CEA-G1920T
  • CEA-G960T
  • CEA-G480T
  • CEA-G240T
  • CEB-G480T
  • CEB-G20T
  • SF-G256T
  • SF-G128T
  • SF-G64T
  • SF-M512T
  • SF-M256T
  • SF-M128T
  • SF-E256
  • SF-E128A
  • SF-E64A

You can still buy Sony's memory cards ... for now

Hand covered in sand holding a Sony memory card Sony

Since many photographers rely on Sony's memory cards to store their digital pictures, this news is particularly painful. However, let's not catastrophize yet. Just because you can't place any new orders for a Sony-branded card doesn't mean you can't buy one.

Retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy still have plenty of Sony memory cards in stock, but only what the outlets could order before Sony cut everyone off. Once these stores run out of CEA-G480T and SF-E128A memory cards, then you have to worry. You also might see some stores "adjust" (i.e., raise) prices to reflect dropping stocks, not unlike how AI data centers are causing smartphone and TV prices to skyrocket. However, if you have encyclopedic knowledge of Sony's memory card catalog, you probably noticed that some were left off the list of affected products, including the CFexpress Type B 960GB (CEB-G960T). That's because Sony is still manufacturing and selling these products, although the G960T is one of Sony's priciest cards, costing just shy of $1,000 on sites such as Amazon.

If worst comes to worst, you can always purchase memory cards through rival manufacturers such as SanDisk and Lexar, but don't expect to save money. According to sites such as TechRadar, prices are spiking like crazy, so keep that in mind when shopping. Until the AI bubble finally pops, you might want to consider purchasing used memory cards.

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