GameStop to Sell PC Hardware

I keep hearing on the new how state and local governments are seeing big declines in tax revenue as retail locations continue to close.
Their solution? Raise taxes (or impose new taxes) on internet businesses.
So, my guess is that eventually the cost of doing business for internet based businesses will equal or surpass the brick and mortar ones. (Basically an 'efficiency' tax)
What's old will become new again. Let's head to the mall!
 
The success of Microcenter indicates this could be a winner if they do it right. Anyone saying there are already good PC retail alternatives dont live in a city without a MC. There are more urban centers without a MC than there are with one. Gamestop, on the other hand, has multiple locations in every urban center right now. If they get focused, and carry the right products then they could have a chance.
Pretty much. With Fry's having last sold anything of value in 2017/2018 or so, my local choices are Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, all of which are widely known to have a massive selection of high-end components. The nearest Microcenter to me is over 400 miles away (a 7 hour drive ($120+ in gas) or $100+ round trip airfare). If they shipped, I'd be spending money there instead of Amazon.
 
"Desperate customers looking to own an RTX 3000 series graphics card might want to keep tabs on GameStop. The video game retailer is starting to sell PC hardware, including GPUs and laptops.
Ok this is some straight up bullshit. So the argument for why EVGA's queue is still on day 1 for literally everything you can queue up for is because stores that get shipments of cards typically have some contracts in advance which sees them get priority to get cards before anyone else. Now a store who is JUST NOW deciding they want to do this, they can get priority over others too? WTF man, do I need to just say "Yeah I'm a store, my store is called 'All Things Hard To Find' now send me a shipment of cards" and poof I get cards?
 
They need to close about half their stores and then convert their remaining ones into mini Microcenters spread out throughout the country. Make most purchases online with in-store pickup to make most efficient use of space. 3-5 knowledgable employees at each store including tech support. The future is working from home for many industries now, having these types of mini tech stores spread out throughout the country would be very beneficial.
MicroCenter is kinda awful. Everything is overpriced and they don't have a good selection. Their graphic card selection is the worst. I have one near me the Paterson NJ one and it sucks. The store is huge but mostly filled with crap. The good stuff is in the back which is where they keep the PC parts. BTW all stores keep the good shit in the back because they want you to wander around and pick up more things to buy. I would say 60% of the store is filled with crap that they're trying to push with under paid and over worked employees. Always with the anti-virus, which I hate dealing with. I'd say that 10% of the store is dedicated to Apple while another 10% is for Dell. A good deal of the store sells pre-built Pc's. They got a small section that's their version of the Genius Bar, which is about as bad as one as well.

Considering the size of a GameStop Store they should only focus on selling pre-built PC's for gaming. I would even go as far as to have custom built GameStop ones, like what WalMart does, but with better quality. The only reason anyone goes to MicroCenter is because they don't want to wait a week or a couple of days for a part to arrive from ordering on Amazon or NewEgg. This is the audience GameStop needs to attract in order to sell, and unlike Micro-Center you can find GameStop nearly everywhere.
 
Gamestop stores have no where near the real estate to hold any form of selection like Microcenter does so they can't be compared. Yes GS has tons of stores, but they are all tiny in footprint. Unless they come up with a local warehouse type setup where they can very quickly deliver in store or transfer store to store, no way this helps them. I doubt they can hold anymore than a BestBuy. Walmart/Target/Staples/Officemax/depot shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread.
 
I just gaze over the selection of PC hardware at Walmart like every 6 months we will get some new peripheral. Usally the good stuff is on Black Friday and nobody buys the stuff so it goes 50% off like a month later. Picked up two Razer Minis for 25.00 each and some Logitech wireless mice for 10.00 each which were 49.00 on Black Friday. Game Stop could put PC hardware cases up to the ceiling and maybe downsize the last gen console selection. When they did sell PC games it was one small rack but they got rid of it a few years ago and all the games were ear marked becuase people would look at them but never buy the cardboard boxes.
 
They need to close about half their stores and then convert their remaining ones into mini Microcenters spread out throughout the country. Make most purchases online with in-store pickup to make most efficient use of space. 3-5 knowledgable employees at each store including tech support. The future is working from home for many industries now, having these types of mini tech stores spread out throughout the country would be very beneficial.
The success of Microcenter indicates this could be a winner if they do it right. Anyone saying there are already good PC retail alternatives dont live in a city without a MC. There are more urban centers without a MC than there are with one. Gamestop, on the other hand, has multiple locations in every urban center right now. If they get focused, and carry the right products then they could have a chance.


I keep hearing this same creed repeated over-and-over, while ignoring a key broken component of every employee who works at Gamestop.

The stores are run with iron fists by Corporate that only care about selling accessories, and locking-in presales; the employees are not encouraged to ne helpful or knowledgeable in any way.

How do you excise a broke Corporate Culture this deeply-riveted? Your magical plan is going to require this minor miracle!
 
Yup!

You have way too many other choices to buy PC hardware locally (with better stock), or online.
Actually that is not right as it depends on where you live. Many states have no Microcenters for example. But then again, I dont expect much from Gamestop lol
 
Gamestop stores have no where near the real estate to hold any form of selection like Microcenter does so they can't be compared. Yes GS has tons of stores, but they are all tiny in footprint. Unless they come up with a local warehouse type setup where they can very quickly deliver in store or transfer store to store, no way this helps them. I doubt they can hold anymore than a BestBuy. Walmart/Target/Staples/Officemax/depot shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread.

Why? because every Gamstop is within 10 minutes of at-least two of these stores (they already have well-defended retail competitors)

Also I list Best Buy as a Megastore because it is. The average BestBuy retail location is 40x larger than a Gamestop:

38000 sq ft

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124317/best-buy-average-store-size-us/

And Gamestop is a little under 2000 sq ft:

https://news.gamestop.com/static-files/21878875-e2cd-4030-92c7-de589db6681c

GMESTOP NEEDS TO GROW EACH STORE BY 10X TO HAVE ANY CHANCE IN HELL OF HAVING SUCCESSFUL PC OFFERING - otherwise each store will have the same small-and-shitty selection each of you all already whining about!
 
Yes GS has tons of stores, but they are all tiny in footprint. Unless they come up with a local warehouse type setup where they can very quickly deliver in store or transfer store to store,
This could actually make sense.
 
MicroCenter is kinda awful. Everything is overpriced and they don't have a good selection. Their graphic card selection is the worst. I have one near me the Paterson NJ one and it sucks.
Maybe the problem is NJ. I can't say that matches my experience with the Texas stores (nor the Boston or Virginia ones, back when I lived there). I will agree that they do sometimes have overpriced stuff, and a lot of probably low-margin things like cables, but people need that stuff, too.
 
where the heck do you live where this is true?
I want to know too. In South Florida, the only place is Best Buy. TigerDirect bought CompUSA, died themselves and things never been the same.
But there's a GameStop on every corner. If they have inventory, it could be a "game" changer or massive fail just like TD.
 
Now they just need to call themselves Software, Etc.

To be fair, I went to a Gamestop for the first time in 4-5 years to get the expansion SSD for my Series X and the place was super clean with the staff being friendly compared to the last time I went there. If they can really dedicate themselves to expanding business, improving customer relation, and treating both their regular staff and branch managers better they could really turn it around and bring me back.
I want to know too. In South Florida, the only place is Best Buy. TigerDirect bought CompUSA, died themselves and things never been the same.
But there's a GameStop on every corner. If they have inventory, it could be a "game" changer or massive fail just like TD.
Are you my neighbor? Best Buy is literally the only place to buy computer hardware around me anymore. All the independent shops I used to visit all converted to service-only shops that don't sell parts. I used to go to Comp USA all the time before they were bought out and shut down. Micro Center really needs to expand into Florida. They're already in Georgia, so come on down.
 
Why? because every Gamstop is within 10 minutes of at-least two of these stores (they already have well-defended retail competitors)

Also I list Best Buy as a Megastore because it is. The average BestBuy retail location is 40x larger than a Gamestop:

GMESTOP NEEDS TO GROW EACH STORE BY 10X TO HAVE ANY CHANCE IN HELL OF HAVING SUCCESSFUL PC OFFERING - otherwise each store will have the same small-and-shitty selection each of you all already whining about!
PC Hardware and Local pickup is the topic at hand. The stores I mentioned don't carry anything to remotely resemble pc hardware offerings. Even full desktops/laptops for that matter. The only local places to pick up PC hardware worth mentioning is Microcenter and Bestbuy. Bestbuy being not even 20% of what MC has. Again local, not ordered online through the website and delivered 2 days later. Im talking about an offering that meets halfway between a Microcenter and a Bestbuy for Gamestop. If they don't carry at least that amount of selection, any idea of carrying pc parts will drive the death nail harder.

We agree on GS stores being too small which I already mentioned in my first post. They will need a hub and spoke warehouse setup.
 
MicroCenter is kinda awful. Everything is overpriced and they don't have a good selection. Their graphic card selection is the worst. I have one near me the Paterson NJ one and it sucks. The store is huge but mostly filled with crap. The good stuff is in the back which is where they keep the PC parts. BTW all stores keep the good shit in the back because they want you to wander around and pick up more things to buy. I would say 60% of the store is filled with crap that they're trying to push with under paid and over worked employees. Always with the anti-virus, which I hate dealing with. I'd say that 10% of the store is dedicated to Apple while another 10% is for Dell. A good deal of the store sells pre-built Pc's. They got a small section that's their version of the Genius Bar, which is about as bad as one as well.

Considering the size of a GameStop Store they should only focus on selling pre-built PC's for gaming. I would even go as far as to have custom built GameStop ones, like what WalMart does, but with better quality. The only reason anyone goes to MicroCenter is because they don't want to wait a week or a couple of days for a part to arrive from ordering on Amazon or NewEgg. This is the audience GameStop needs to attract in order to sell, and unlike Micro-Center you can find GameStop nearly everywhere.
My experience with the Paterson MC was the exact opposite to everything you described; however, I haven't been there since I moved away a few years ago and things may have changed. The entire back wall of the store used to be PC components, with a huge selection of motherboards, graphics cards, and a decent variety of CPUs. They had an entire aisle of PC cases with dozens open and on display. There was a similar selection of RAM, SSDs, HDDs, etc. They even had a full Apple store inside the store.

Has it gone that far downhill?
 
My experience with the Paterson MC was the exact opposite to everything you described; however, I haven't been there since I moved away a few years ago and things may have changed. The entire back wall of the store used to be PC components, with a huge selection of motherboards, graphics cards, and a decent variety of CPUs. They had an entire aisle of PC cases with dozens open and on display. There was a similar selection of RAM, SSDs, HDDs, etc. They even had a full Apple store inside the store.

Has it gone that far downhill?

I happened to be at the local Microcenter just before 10AM opening and there was an insanely long line outside the store. It's always busy. Best Buy is a ghost town except around Christmas.
 
I happened to be at the local Microcenter just before 10AM opening and there was an insanely long line outside the store. It's always busy. Best Buy is a ghost town except around Christmas.
That's how I remember it being when I lived in North Jersey.
 
My experience with the Paterson MC was the exact opposite to everything you described; however, I haven't been there since I moved away a few years ago and things may have changed. The entire back wall of the store used to be PC components, with a huge selection of motherboards, graphics cards, and a decent variety of CPUs. They had an entire aisle of PC cases with dozens open and on display. There was a similar selection of RAM, SSDs, HDDs, etc. They even had a full Apple store inside the store.

Has it gone that far downhill?
IMHO the Michigan store is a bit of both. Selection is great for a box store but it's certainty not Newegg. The case display is great to see cases in person and check dimensions. A large portion of the store is prebuilt PCS, Apple , and TVs. Last time I was in they had greatly expanded the water-cooling selection which is cool.

Prices aren't awful, but they aren't anything special if you aren't shopping sales. Cables and accessories are generally overpriced but still 1/2 of what BestBuy charges. My biggest gripe is that the floor employees are paid on commission and some of them are insufferable. I don't mind telling them no thanks, but hearing the awful advise they give other shoppers is a bit irksome.
 
Considering the size of a GameStop Store they should only focus on selling pre-built PC's for gaming. I would even go as far as to have custom built GameStop ones, like what WalMart does, but with better quality. The only reason anyone goes to MicroCenter is because they don't want to wait a week or a couple of days for a part to arrive from ordering on Amazon or NewEgg. This is the audience GameStop needs to attract in order to sell, and unlike Micro-Center you can find GameStop nearly everywhere.

I think this is a more realistic goal. Stock a couple gaming desktops, gaming laptops, and maybe a few peripherals. At that point they are just selling expensive gaming consoles. (Something they are already geared to do.)

Microcenter works because people will drive 1/2 a day to visit one. If you put one in every city big enough to have a Walmart, they loose the customer volume to sustain the selection that makes them noteworthy. Then they would just go the way of circuit city and comp usa.
 
My experience with the Paterson MC was the exact opposite to everything you described; however, I haven't been there since I moved away a few years ago and things may have changed. The entire back wall of the store used to be PC components, with a huge selection of motherboards, graphics cards, and a decent variety of CPUs. They had an entire aisle of PC cases with dozens open and on display. There was a similar selection of RAM, SSDs, HDDs, etc. They even had a full Apple store inside the store.

Has it gone that far downhill?
That's how it is today except they've had a limited selection of graphic cards for years. Right now the only card they have in stock is the GTX 1050 Ti. The shelf is half hard disk drives, which you'd think they'd have a bigger shelf for something as important as a graphics card. One isle used to have stuff for electronic repair and Raspberry Pi like stuff but that's gone now. They used to have a water cooling section but they don't anymore. They now sell their own brand power supply but it's the typical junk power supplies you wouldn't put in a PC you cared about. The Apple Store isn't a plus in my opinion as its taking up space that could be better used for more important things. Same goes for the Dell section, which took the place of the old Apple section since that moved into the middle of the store. Went there to other day because they gave me a card for free flash drive or micro SD card and looked for video cables and they're the same price you'd find in BestBuy. Not like it matters because the store is always packed with people, which is probably not good with COVID.
 
Gamestop stores have no where near the real estate to hold any form of selection like Microcenter does so they can't be compared. Yes GS has tons of stores, but they are all tiny in footprint. Unless they come up with a local warehouse type setup where they can very quickly deliver in store or transfer store to store, no way this helps them. I doubt they can hold anymore than a BestBuy. Walmart/Target/Staples/Officemax/depot shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread.
That is why Gamestop has to be smart about the stock they carry. Cater to the enthusiast, dont try and carry every type of case, seperate yourself as the "high end" pc retailer. Imagine build events and contests. What if they, and this is just my imagination going wild, reached out to a caselabs, made them the house brand and brought them back from the dead. They would just carry that one brand, what a brand. You cant get Thermalright products at microcenter, what about optimus water blocks? What if they were exclusive retailers of amd reference cards? They don't have to be microcenter, they dont have to sell near the volume per store to net profits.
 
That is why Gamestop has to be smart about the stock they carry. Cater to the enthusiast, dont try and carry every type of case, seperate yourself as the "high end" pc retailer. Imagine build events and contests. What if they, and this is just my imagination going wild, reached out to a caselabs, made them the house brand and brought them back from the dead. They would just carry that one brand, what a brand. You cant get Thermalright products at microcenter, what about optimus water blocks? What if they were exclusive retailers of amd reference cards? They don't have to be microcenter, they dont have to sell near the volume per store to net profits.
They'd have to be careful. Selling ridiculously priced parts like Case Labs wouldn't be good, they'd end up pushing people away with sticker shock. But I agree that they should brand themselves as a "high end" retailer where you can pick up those types of parts without having to order online.
 
Like I said in the other thread, this might actually be a very good time to strike a deal with Micro Center for GameStop. Put a mini Micro Center in each store for hardware, and use Micro Center for techs and support.
 
Why? because every Gamstop is within 10 minutes of at-least two of these stores (they already have well-defended retail competitors)

Also I list Best Buy as a Megastore because it is. The average BestBuy retail location is 40x larger than a Gamestop:

38000 sq ft

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124317/best-buy-average-store-size-us/

And Gamestop is a little under 2000 sq ft:

https://news.gamestop.com/static-files/21878875-e2cd-4030-92c7-de589db6681c

GMESTOP NEEDS TO GROW EACH STORE BY 10X TO HAVE ANY CHANCE IN HELL OF HAVING SUCCESSFUL PC OFFERING - otherwise each store will have the same small-and-shitty selection each of you all already whining about!
Gamestop isn't going to start selling refrigerators and televisions. The entire PC component section of Best Buy takes up one isle.
 
My local Best Buy has a pretty large PC section. Mostly pre-builts and laptops. They have a ton of peripherals, though, and in normal times would have a small selection of GPUs and other parts.
 
Maybe when they still had Babbages, but I don't recall ever seeing PC hardware in their Gamestop-branded stores since its inception in 1999-2000.

We carried PC hardware at EB in that time frame.
 
That's how it is today except they've had a limited selection of graphic cards for years. Right now the only card they have in stock is the GTX 1050 Ti. The shelf is half hard disk drives, which you'd think they'd have a bigger shelf for something as important as a graphics card. One isle used to have stuff for electronic repair and Raspberry Pi like stuff but that's gone now.
Weird. That doesn't track with either of the Texas stores, both of which have fairly large areas for video cards, which are currently all full of 1030s and 710s, and both have large Pi/Arduino/etc areas, the equivalent of at least two entire shelf runs. Comparing the size of the two stores, it looks like the NJ one is smaller than the Houston one by about two-three shelves in each direction, which would explain part of it.
 
News of that move was enough to make me look at the site, which I would otherwise never.
Saw stuff I might buy. Check it again after work, burning up my lunch hour at the moment...
 
Yeah that Duke Nukem really stayed true to its name.

I really miss Software Ect. I used to go to the one in Texas near the Northeast Mall in the DFW area, the manager there was cool, older guy. It was connected to a book store so you could get your PC Gamer or whatever PC magazine you read, then walk right through to Software Ect. I remember them having all sorts of PC hardware, from graphics card to soundcards, keyboards mice whatever, in the end they started to sell more pop culture type products (toys & figurines) and I knew that they didn't have long left, Good times. I miss seeing all those game boxes lining the walls. It was like going to a PC game library. It was a great store to nerd out on. :) I never once felt that way about Gamestop, I always wanted to get out of the store as quick as I could.

Maybe this will be some sort of turning point for Gamestop, although I highly doubt it. I've never had any of their employees give the the feeling they actually like their job or are interested in their customers other than getting their money or pre orders. We shall see.
I remember this store was awesome I think next to a similar store called Ebx, would get random games from here.

That being said I personally hate physical media these days, so if gamestop, microcenter, best buy or who ever could somehow figure out how to be price competitive with pc hardware, or console hardware, or even offer digital resell that would be great. I do think something physical can be special, but with so many digital platforms and low margins how can they afford rent and decent qualified staff? Maybe take the MC route with retro gaming but somehow become totally legit, retropie legal edition or something?

Actually got a used alienware alpha off gs website a long time ago as a pretty good price and was excellent sff pc.
 
Sell PC hardware? Well, it’s slightly better than nothing.

Honestly, I don’t buy games at GameStop ever since they started damaging them by putting giant stickers on boxes that ruin the collectors value of them.

but worse...

I once bought a PS3 game when that was still newish. The clerk goes to the shelf, and takes the display box with a sticker that reads “display only” on it. They open a drawer, next to dozen sealed copies of the same game. They took the disk out of plastic bin, stuck a sticker on it, and then shoved it into the plastic box. They then added another sticker to it to show it’s sealed...

So I think maybe those other games are all reserved... but no..

He then cracks open a new copy, puts the “display only” sticker on the box, shoves the disc into the plastic bin, and puts the box back on the shelf. He looks at me, shrugs, and says “corporate policy”. I told him I’m not buying it and walked out.

I’ve visited a lot of GameStops since then and found them to be mostly the same as that incident.

Sorry for the workers, but I won’t mourn GameStop if it dies.
 
Yeah, I pushed back one time when they did that. It was Catherine for Xbox360. Same deal, display box opened and stickered, I wanted a new one.

Dude said that was the last one. So I asked for discount because it was used. He said it wasn't used. The disc was just sitting in the drawer. LOL.
 
The biggest issue I see is having room to store all the cases. Selling individual components takes up a lot more room then selling a pre-built. That said, even large pre-built desktops we see these days take up a considerable amount of room.

Lets for arguement say that Gamestop goes the pre-built route for space efficiency: Would there be mass market appeal for exclusively ITX sized offerings? (Say with all the tempered glass/RGB that sells larger cases)

They could make prebuilts that are all mostly the same with the main differences being GPU selection and storage.
-1 Motherboard (ITX B550 perhaps..)
-1 CPU (Ryzen 3600...5000 series eventually)
-8gb RGB DDR4 dimms (16gb potentially)
-QLC SSDs
-Basic RGB accessories and Fans
-1-2 RGB Liquid Coolers
-mix of GPUs high to low

If the look is right I don't see why it couldn't work. Be a curated experience. Don't offer selection, only what you feel people actually want to buy. (A good base system, that looks great, with a GPU that will play games)

This idea is not for people like us on [H] we care about the nitty gritty. If Gamestop does this, they should go for one size fits all at pricepoints that people will pay.
 
I've never seen any real evidence of this. While some stores may have experimented with it, I've never seen a significant amount of hardware at a game stop.

I might be retreading old ground here, so apologies in advance if I’m saying anything you (and anyone else) already know.

I worked for what would become GameStop for about 5 years starting in the late 90s. At the time it was two storefronts owned by the same company - Babbages, and Software etc.

in the time I was there they acquired funcoland and electronics boutique and we’re converting all the stores to the GameStop brand.

PC upgrade hardware was actually really common in all the shops I worked at - maybe half a dozen different ones - up until late 2001 / early 2002 ish. We had regular stock of sound blaster AWE64 and Live cards, Voodoo 2, TNT2, up through voodoo 3 and geforce 2 and all the various in betweens that were around at the time - Matrox stuff, etc. joysticks and other flight / racing type accessories too.

in those early years I used my employee discount to get a lot of hardware upgrades for my PCs. By early 2002 though a lot of stuff went on clearance - I remember very clearly buying half a dozen voodoo 2 cards for $20 each, several sound blaster lives, etc.

and that was the end of it. I don’t think anything else came in as far as PC components after it was all closed out. And that was around the time the conversion to GameStop was really moving into full swing.

so while I don’t think any GameStop, under that name, sold PC hardware, the company used to do it a long time ago.

personally, I like the idea of a little shop that was basically a smaller version of Microcenter’s “DIY” section.

But GameStop hasn’t catered to PC gamers in a long time - the writing was on the wall when Steam was released alongside HL2. For a while PC publishers tried to compete for shelf space with console games - somewhere around 2003 or so they started moving to a “standard” size PC game box, to try and make for better shelf presentation, but the sections kept shrinking, occasionally buoyed by a big World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition box, to the point where there’s nothing there anymore.

So while I like the idea, I have to wonder - if PC gamers don’t go to the stores, why would they put PC hardware in them?

Any of you guys interested in going to a GameStop to buy a $2000 RTX 3080 and then having to decline the game informer subscription 3 or 4 times while you’re there? Maybe you want to reserve a copy of Mass Effect 5 to guarantee you get it on the release date? Buy an Xbox controller for your PC? Used one is $5 less!

No, I think that ship has sailed. Maybe they could have pulled this off 6-7 years ago, before mining started screwing up GPU prices, but now? More likely they’ll just do what they’re already doing - selling a handful of overpriced video cards on their website, and hoping PC gamers buy Steam keys from them instead of all the other places also selling Steam keys.

stonk all you want, but unless they regularly undercut the pricing on the Xbox store, PSN, Steam, etc, the slow demise of physical media for games is also the slow demise of physical stores for games.
 
I might be retreading old ground here, so apologies in advance if I’m saying anything you (and anyone else) already know.

I worked for what would become GameStop for about 5 years starting in the late 90s. At the time it was two storefronts owned by the same company - Babbages, and Software etc.

in the time I was there they acquired funcoland and electronics boutique and we’re converting all the stores to the GameStop brand.

PC upgrade hardware was actually really common in all the shops I worked at - maybe half a dozen different ones - up until late 2001 / early 2002 ish. We had regular stock of sound blaster AWE64 and Live cards, Voodoo 2, TNT2, up through voodoo 3 and geforce 2 and all the various in betweens that were around at the time - Matrox stuff, etc. joysticks and other flight / racing type accessories too.

in those early years I used my employee discount to get a lot of hardware upgrades for my PCs. By early 2002 though a lot of stuff went on clearance - I remember very clearly buying half a dozen voodoo 2 cards for $20 each, several sound blaster lives, etc.

and that was the end of it. I don’t think anything else came in as far as PC components after it was all closed out. And that was around the time the conversion to GameStop was really moving into full swing.

so while I don’t think any GameStop, under that name, sold PC hardware, the company used to do it a long time ago.

personally, I like the idea of a little shop that was basically a smaller version of Microcenter’s “DIY” section.

But GameStop hasn’t catered to PC gamers in a long time - the writing was on the wall when Steam was released alongside HL2. For a while PC publishers tried to compete for shelf space with console games - somewhere around 2003 or so they started moving to a “standard” size PC game box, to try and make for better shelf presentation, but the sections kept shrinking, occasionally buoyed by a big World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition box, to the point where there’s nothing there anymore.

So while I like the idea, I have to wonder - if PC gamers don’t go to the stores, why would they put PC hardware in them?

Any of you guys interested in going to a GameStop to buy a $2000 RTX 3080 and then having to decline the game informer subscription 3 or 4 times while you’re there? Maybe you want to reserve a copy of Mass Effect 5 to guarantee you get it on the release date? Buy an Xbox controller for your PC? Used one is $5 less!

No, I think that ship has sailed. Maybe they could have pulled this off 6-7 years ago, before mining started screwing up GPU prices, but now? More likely they’ll just do what they’re already doing - selling a handful of overpriced video cards on their website, and hoping PC gamers buy Steam keys from them instead of all the other places also selling Steam keys.

stonk all you want, but unless they regularly undercut the pricing on the Xbox store, PSN, Steam, etc, the slow demise of physical media for games is also the slow demise of physical stores for games.

Yes, if you are counting the non-Gamestop branded stores, PC components were common place. Babbages, etc. did have them as I recall looking at those things in the 1990's. As you said, Gamestop branded stores have never sold computer hardware. At least, not to my knowledge. I have had more than a few friends work at those stores, so I frequented them quite a bit even though I didn't buy things in them very often.
 
Yes, if you are counting the non-Gamestop branded stores, PC components were common place. Babbages, etc. did have them as I recall looking at those things in the 1990's. As you said, Gamestop branded stores have never sold computer hardware. At least, not to my knowledge. I have had more than a few friends work at those stores, so I frequented them quite a bit even though I didn't buy things in them very often.

As of a few years ago Gamestop branded stores sold EVGA GPUs around here. Prices were not great, there were only a few, but if I recall they were things like 1060 and 1070s. I think that stopped and a number of the stores locally have closed. There used to be two in the local mall, just a 90-120 second walk apart. I think at one point there may have been three. Then a lot of the stores closed down. Think I am down to two locally now, from five to six.
 
We carried PC hardware at EB in that time frame.
I think people are thinking GameStop but really they are thinking Babbages, Electronics Boutique, etc.....GameStop came later (at least in the NorthEast where I was).......hell Toys R Us used to sell PC hardware and software....grab the ticket above the sealed cases in the back, collect your swag from the cage in the front.
 
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