Now might be a good time to get yourself a Roku: prices are set to rise by up to 60%, and the memory shortage is to blame

Now might be a good time to get yourself a Roku: prices are set to rise by up to 60%, and the memory shortage is to blame

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K (Image credit: Roku) Prices on Roku streaming devices are going upThe products are still available at 'sale' pricesOne source puts the change down to the memory crisisStreaming devices like the Roku Streaming Stick Plus get you a whole lot of entertainment for relatively little money, but the value proposition is about to change: Roku is the latest tech company to jack up its prices in response to the global memory shortage.As spotted by Ars Technica and others, the prices for streaming devices on the Roku US website have been put up, though the products are still available at their previous prices — now labeled as 'sale' offers. It's not clear how long this sale might last before the new pricing kicks in, but you might want to grab a Roku quickly.The Streaming Stick is up to $39.99 from $29.99, the Streaming Stick Plus goes up from $39.99 to $59.99, the Streaming Stick 4K is now $79.99 rather than $49.99 (the biggest jump at 60%), and the Roku Ultra box is up to $149.99 from $99.99.Looking at Roku's international websites, including the UK, there are no signs of price rises yet — but it seems inevitable that if the company is putting up the cost of buying a Roku in the US, then this will come to other countries too in the near future.Time to switch? The Apple TV 4K also recently went up in price (Image credit: Future)Roku hasn't said anything officially about the new price changes, but according to the team at The Desk, a Roku executive they spoke to confirmed that it was down to "shortages in computer memory and other components".We know that rapidly rising demands for AI compute capacity have led to a severe shortage of memory and rocketing costs, and everyone in the industry has been affected. Last month Apple raised its prices on a variety of different products in response, including iPads and the MacBook Neo.Reaction online has been mostly negative, as you would expect. One Redditor says "it's hard to find another affordable option" for streaming devices like these, though other commentators are recommending alternatives from Google and Apple.Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.There's also some consternation over an increasing amount of ads being shown on Roku screens, and the company's recent acquisition by Fox. Whatever you think of Roku though, it's another sign of consumers being hit hard by memory shortages. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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