Akihabara retailer asks shoppers to sell old PCs as gaming systems run short
A Japanese PC and electronics retailer says gaming PCs are getting hard to find, including used units. Sofmap Gaming, which operates in Tokyo’s Akihabara area, posted on X asking customers to sell old computers back to the store when buying a new one.
The post says both new and used gaming PCs are in “severe shortage.” The retailer also says buyback prices are high right now. The message says Sofmap will buy almost anything , including gaming desktops, laptops, and even regular non-gaming PCs.
Source: Twitter
Reports from Akihabara last November also mentioned some stores limiting sales of memory modules, SSDs, and hard drives. DDR5 kits appear to be the first pain point for consumers, with limited availability and elevated pricing, while DDR4 is still easier to source in comparison.
A similar type of shortage is reportedly affecting the Japanese GPU market. A recent report says higher-end GeForce cards are selling out almost as soon as they arrive, with the weakest availability starting around the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB tier and above. Some retailers say restocks are hard to predict because the bottleneck seems to be further up the supply chain, and many stores have put purchase limits in place for all models.
Source: @sofmap_gaming
