January 8, 2026
Grandpa PCs to the rescue
Japanese electronics store pleads for old PCs amid ongoing hardware shortage
Old PCs turn to gold as shoppers split: clever reuse or a sign the market’s broken
TLDR: A major Tokyo store is pleading for old PCs as new parts dry up and memory prices soar. Comments split between celebrating reuse, bragging about thrift-store scores, debating Japan’s PC scene, and realizing those closet PCs might be worth cash—proof the shortage is changing what people buy and value.
Akihabara’s Sofmap just did the unthinkable: it publicly begged people to sell their dusty rigs, flashing near-empty shelves like a horror movie for gamers. The reason? New parts are scarce, memory prices are exploding, and even used machines are vanishing. Cue the comment section chaos. The biggest cheerleaders are the reuse crew. “I’m all for re-using old but still perfectly usable hardware,” says one, hoping this shortage forces apps and games to run smarter, not heavier. Another hot take: high prices might be a weird blessing because “we finally use what we have,” turning thriftiness into a virtue. Then came the treasure hunters. One commenter casually dropped a flex about finding piles of cheap older memory sticks at a rural Japanese chain store, basically sparking a “finders keepers” gold-rush vibe—with a twist of doubt: do they even work? Culture clash time: a veteran shopper insists Japan isn’t the home of gaming PCs like Seoul, poking the Akihabara myth and lighting up a mini turf war over whether Electric Town is truly PC heaven. And the plot twist of the day? E-waste guilt pays off: someone who hoarded a 15-year-old setup can’t believe it suddenly has value—and regrets not building a new rig last summer. Between soaring new RAM (the newest kind, DDR5) and safer old-school parts (DDR4), the crowd is joking about “Antiques Roadshow: PC Edition” while refreshing Sofmap like it’s concert tickets.
Key Points
- •Sofmap Gaming in Akihabara asked customers to sell old PCs due to severe stock shortages of used gaming systems.
- •A memory supply crunch driven by AI data center demand has sharply increased DDR5 prices and reduced availability.
- •An example DDR5 kit (Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-5200 16GB) is listed at about $235 on Amazon, up from $66 in October.
- •DDR4 remains relatively more available, with more DDR4-supporting motherboards and hints of new processors targeting DDR4 platforms.
- •Aftershocks include rising prebuilt PC prices and expected constraints and price increases for GPUs, with next-gen GPUs rumored to be delayed.