GameStop to start selling PC hardware

[Demonmit]

Summary

Gamestop has recently added PC hardware to their online webstore with mostly Cooler Master products listed for sale for a TBD time, with available dates on a few items being 9/30 and 10/02, a few days from now. There are also several pages of prebuilt gaming PC's available for purchase, with some being set to available 9/30. 

 

Quotes

Quote

N/A

 

My thoughts

Gamestop has been clearly on a decline for years, lots of bad press about poor customer experience. Rather interesting to see them start selling PC components and prebuild PC's. I'm not sure what else to think of it? what do you guys think?

 

Sources

I have yet to see any articles on this topic, checked google and nothing exists on it yet from what I could see.
https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/pc/components
https://www.gamestop.com/nav-pc-hardware-desktops

[TheRandomness]

So I can trade in my RTX 3090 P edition for like, $2? Nice.

[Demonmit]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

So I can trade in my RTX 3090 P edition for like, $2? Nice.

hey, or $20 in store credit! gotta at least acknowledge that, might be able to buy a dirty Xbox 360 controller with that...

[VeganJoy]

haha i saw that last night, what a terrifying prospect. cant wait to see what kinda bs theyll have for the used section. "eh, whats this 10900k? doesnt look like much, best i can do i 3.50" then the underpaid and undertrained retail worker gets to handle a several hundred dollar little chip

[TotallyNotGigabit]

Or you buy a desktop PC that's been "refurbished" but in reality it's covered in Cheeto dust and blocked heatsinks with Fortnite stickers all over it and has loose mounts and half-inserted RAM.

[Demonmit]

2 minutes ago, VeganJoy said:

haha i saw that last night, what a terrifying prospect. cant wait to see what kinda bs theyll have for the used section. "eh, whats this 10900k? doesnt look like much, best i can do i 3.50" then the underpaid and undertrained retail worker gets to handle a several hundred dollar little chip

Walmart PC 2: Gamestop boogaloo

[VeganJoy]

admittedly it shouldnt be the worst thing, aside from gamestop still existing and treating everyone like shit, customers and employees. ive never even seen a microcenter and best buy doesnt carry in store components afaik so itd be nice to see things like cases or coolers in person. and they would presumably carry next gen parts on launch days and help distribute video cards and whatnot to actual end consumers instead of scalpers, hopefully

[Bombastinator]

GameStop’s market niche of trading console game disks was destroyed by game downloading. They were effectively a used book store for video games.  This kind of thing happens sometimes.  They’re flailing about for a new one.  They might possibly perhaps have a bit of something with desktop hardware.  Brick and mortar desktop stores were damaged in much the same way, and may have fallen so hard a market niche opened in some places. Not everywhere, because while brick and mortar electronics stores shrunk radically they didn’t disappear completely.  they’re now effectively competing with places like bestbuy.  I could see it not working in my town where there is both a BestBuy and a microcenter.  There may be places where GameStop is the only place in town though.  In those they could maybe make it.  Every time there has been a change in console generation GameStop has had a really hard time. We’re in the middle of one now.  Looking at game services though the new consoles may emerge diskless. 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Bombastinator

[SansVarnic]

@Demonmit please fix you topic to meet the posting Guidelines.

 

Your quotes are not from the sources listed. Please fix this or your topic may be removed.

Quote

• Your thread should also include quotes from the cited source(s). While you shouldn't just copy the entire article, your quote should give the reader a summary of the article in a way that gives the key details, but also leaves room for them to read the full article on the linked website. Please use quote tags to show that you have copied this content from another site.

 

[Lord Bloobus]

They're gonna need to pay more than minimum wage to high school students if they want that to work for them, PC hardware isn't something to be taken lightly since a single piece is usually worth more than several used consoles at even the medium price point.

[Kisai]

8 hours ago, Demonmit said:

Summary

Gamestop has recently added PC hardware to their online webstore with mostly Cooler Master products listed for sale for a TBD time, with available dates on a few items being 9/30 and 10/02, a few days from now. There are also several pages of prebuilt gaming PC's available for purchase, with some being set to available 9/30. 

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Gamestop has been clearly on a decline for years, lots of bad press about poor customer experience. Rather interesting to see them start selling PC components and prebuild PC's. I'm not sure what else to think of it? what do you guys think?

 

Sources

I have yet to see any articles on this topic, checked google and nothing exists on it yet from what I could see.
https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/pc/components
https://www.gamestop.com/nav-pc-hardware-desktops

Probably the last breath to stay alive honestly.

 

EBGames here is mostly a toy store.

 

[Shreyas1]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

GameStop’s market niche of trading console game disks was destroyed by game downloading. They were effectively a used book store for video games.  This kind of thing happens sometimes.  They’re flailing about for a new one.  They might possibly perhaps have a bit of something with desktop hardware.  Brick and mortar desktop stores were damaged in much the same way, and may have fallen so hard a market niche opened in some places. Not everywhere, because while brick and mortar electronics stores shrunk radically they didn’t disappear completely.  they’re now effectively competing with places like bestbuy.  I could see it not working in my town where there is both a BestBuy and a microcenter.  There may be places where GameStop is the only place in town though.  In those they could maybe make it.  Every time there has been a change in console generation GameStop has had a really hard time. We’re in the middle of one now.  Looking at game services though the new consoles may emerge diskless. 

If they do it right, they could potentially specialize in used, low to mid tier hardware that would be useful for gamers on a budget, which is something both BestBuy and Microcenter cannot do. For example, if GameStop could specialize in flipping used 10 series and 20 cards that are guaranteed to work, they might be able to find a niche there.

[TetraSky]

Huh.. Cool I guess. More places to go for hardware is always good. Remains to be seen if their prices will be competitive or not, though.

 

I'm guessing with the next gen of consoles moving to Digital, Gamestop has no choice but to "change" ASAP to remain relevant in 5 years from now if Sony and Microsoft release an all-digital console only without a disc version available (5 years is probably too soon, but it is likely going to come sooner or later. Especially considering the Digital version of the console right now is so much more affordable.)

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Huh.. Cool I guess. More places to go for hardware is always good. Remains to be seen if their prices will be competitive or not, though.

 

I'm guessing with the next gen of consoles moving to Digital, Gamestop has no choice but to "change" ASAP to remain relevant in 5 years from now if Sony and Microsoft release an all-digital console only without a disc version available (5 years is probably too soon, but it is likely going to come sooner or later. Especially considering the Digital version of the console right now is so much more affordable.)

If games cost $40-60 instead of $10-30 used at GameStop though, though that means an extra $30/game.  Digital consoles start out cheaper but only stay that way if you don’t buy very many games. Also it promotes crap games over good ones.  It feels like Hollywood’s studio system, or the tide system bars were stuck with before prohibition.  It used to be that beer companies owned all the bars, and a given bar could only sell one brand of beer.   One of the weird benefits of prohibition was it destroyed the tide system and gave america decent beer.. eventually.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

Why can't they just disappear with some dignity. 

 

Game Stop is like a bad smell that you can't find the source of, no matter how hard you try.

 

As others have said, they built their terrible reputation on ripping off multiple generations of console gamers (and shoplifters).

 

You could buy a ps4 game across the street, still wrapped in cellophane, at full AAA $/€/£ 60 price, then go straight into Game Stop and they'd offer you 12 and make out they were doing you a favour. 

 

Then, as soon as you'd left the shop, a feeling of being violated hanging over you like a rain cloud, they would put it on the shelf for 55 and laugh at you.

 

 

[Jito463]

10 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Brick and mortar desktop stores were damaged in much the same way, and may have fallen so hard a market niche opened in some places. Not everywhere, because while brick and mortar electronics stores shrunk radically they didn’t disappear completely.  they’re now effectively competing with places like bestbuy.

That's basically where the shop I work at finds itself.  We fill a niche that no one else in town - or even for 200 miles around - fills, save for Best Buy (sort of).  The funny thing is,  we're mere blocks away from BB, and yet people still prefer to come to us for most parts.  Even more so with the current situation, because for months BB wasn't allowing anyone inside the store.

[atxcyclist]

I remember when they were Electronics Boutique, they used to sell graphics cards.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

That's basically where the shop I work at finds itself.  We fill a niche that no one else in town - or even for 200 miles around - fills, save for Best Buy (sort of).  The funny thing is,  we're mere blocks away from BB, and yet people still prefer to come to us for most parts.  Even more so with the current situation, because for months BB wasn't allowing anyone inside the store.

See this a lot with construction equipment in my town.  Big Box Home stores drastically changed the mechanic.  Got a plumbing store literally across the street from a big box store in my neighborhood.  Plumbing store is getting along though.  They do it by having stuff the big box doesn’t.   There was a power tools store called 7 corners hardware that went the same route. Pro tools.  You needed big gear it’s where you went.  Store closed but it only happened because the owner wanted to retire, and it turned out the lot he was on (been there so long he owned the building) was worth over 5 million.  Hard to beat that math. 

[Demonmit]

17 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

@Demonmit please fix you topic to meet the posting Guidelines.

 

Your quotes are not from the sources listed. Please fix this or your topic may be removed.

 

if there's no article or news about the topic of time of post... what am I supposed to quote? lol

[Jito463]

9 hours ago, Demonmit said:

if there's no article or news about the topic of time of post... what am I supposed to quote? lol

You can quote from the sources you linked to.

[rcmaehl]

I'm game.

 

Frys, Microcenter, <X electronics specialty store> don't have anywhere near the number of storefronts Gamestop has. I just hope they're reasonably priced... and they should be due to being able to bulk order significantly more.

 

Granted we may still see a LARGE closure of Gamestops, but even if 80% of them were to close there'd still be like 1 per city which is way more than any competitor.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

No one do this!!!!!!!!!!! Gamestop is going to die, and if you have preorders when a store closes, you dont get the item of your money.

[StDragon]

On 9/26/2020 at 7:41 AM, Bombastinator said:

GameStop’s market niche of trading console game disks was destroyed by game downloading. They were effectively a used book store for video games.  This kind of thing happens sometimes.  They’re flailing about for a new one.

 

It's what ultimately killed off Blockbuster Video. Looking back on it, I really miss those days. It wasn't just about watching the movie, but the journey with family and friends to choose one and watch it together. 

 

It was the same thing with game cartridges. You swapped them with friends. Or you shared playing them together on one screen.

 

On 9/26/2020 at 3:49 PM, Kisai said:

Probably the last breath to stay alive honestly.

 

PC gaming really needs a renaissance in LAN party play. Best thing for them would be to curate ESport competition and bring gamers together to purchase PC hardware. Other then that, yeah, the handwriting is on the wall for GameStop; and that's very unfortunate.

[Eaglerino]

Wouldn't mind this, I have no PC part stores of any kind to speak of within 250 miles of where I live but if Gamestop had even a few things it would make me go there from time to time.

[S w a t s o n]

On 9/26/2020 at 4:49 PM, Kisai said:

Probably the last breath to stay alive honestly.

 

EBGames here is mostly a toy store.

 

True but I think this is a good addition, just the basics from even 1 or 2 reputable brands like cooler master and corsair would be very nice since we dont have as many computer stores although that has been getting a little better.