Is HP (HPQ) Using Gaming Education Partnerships to Reframe Its AI‑Era PC Strategy?

• Earlier this month, Xsolla announced a collaboration with HP to link HP’s Gaming Garage learning platform with Xsolla’s Accelerator, aiming to support over 100,000 aspiring game developers globally through integrated education, incubation, and studio launch pathways.
• This initiative highlights how HP is using its gaming and education platforms to build long-term engagement with future creators, even as analysts focus on the pressures rising memory costs may place on its core PC business.
• Now we’ll examine how concerns over higher memory costs and AI-related “memory squeeze” risks may influence HP’s existing investment narrative.

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HP Investment Narrative Recap

To own HP today, you need to believe that a mature PC and print franchise can still compound value through AI PCs, services, and disciplined capital returns, despite tepid growth and margin pressure. The recent “memory squeeze” concerns and higher component costs are material for HP’s near term earnings trajectory and may blunt the AI PC upgrade story, making cost control and pricing discipline the key short term catalyst and risk to watch.

Against that backdrop, the Xsolla collaboration around HP’s Gaming Garage platform is interesting because it reinforces HP’s push into gaming and creator ecosystems, where higher value PCs and services could offset some headwinds in its commoditized core. While this program will not solve rising memory costs, it does fit with HP’s effort to shift more of its mix toward premium, experience led offerings that are less exposed to pure price competition.

Yet even as HP leans into AI PCs and creator tools, investors should be aware that rising memory prices could still...

Read the full narrative on HP (it's free!)

HP's narrative projects $56.8 billion revenue and $2.9 billion earnings by 2028. This requires 1.3% yearly revenue growth and about a $0.3 billion earnings increase from $2.6 billion.

Uncover how HP's forecasts yield a $25.88 fair value, in line with its current price.

Exploring Other Perspectives

Four members of the Simply Wall St Community currently value HP between US$25.88 and US$47.20, reflecting a wide spread in expectations. As you weigh those views, remember that multiple analysts now flag rising memory costs as a key risk that could pressure HP’s earnings and test the resilience of its AI PC and premium device thesis.

Explore 4 other fair value estimates on HP - why the stock might be worth as much as 85% more than the current price!

Build Your Own HP Narrative

Disagree with existing narratives? Create your own in under 3 minutes - extraordinary investment returns rarely come from following the herd.

• A great starting point for your HP research is our analysis highlighting 2 key rewards and 3 important warning signs that could impact your investment decision.
• Our free HP research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate HP's overall financial health at a glance.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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