If you're one of our many UK and European readers, then you will be very familiar with CEX; it's a store focused on selling and buying video games, movies, electronics, VHS, CDs and a whole lot more. It's become a very popular store over the years, thanks to its 5-year guarantee on purchases and the fact that physical media is growing in demand.
According to a UK retro-focused YouTuber known as Retro Ghetto, a channel we have followed for a while now, has inside knowledge from not one, but two CEX staff and sources that new CEX stores are in development to sell and buy "retro only" items, likely creating spaces that don't sell modern-day electronics, Blu-Rays or modern video games such as Switch and PS5, but instead retro video games, collectables, trading cards, arcade machines, comics, handheld emulators and more.
Retro Ghetto even goes as far as saying, "I can officially confirm, this is definitely going to happen" and "Launching this holiday season or Early 2027"; it sounds to me like he's pretty adamant, and due to his long list of CEX-focused YouTube videos, I kinda believe him! If anyone knows insider information, it's this G.
The first store will be opening up in Birmingham's City Centre on Bull Street, states Retro Ghetto, and will be smaller than a traditional larger store, taking the space of a previous kids/baby store near their old store and stocking items taken from a range of other stores across the UK and possibly Europe, in an effort to stock it with some of the finest retro games and retro items possible.
Internal sources have also been code-naming these new stores "REX" for Retro Exchange, and even CEX Retro; I'm personally a fan of REX! These stores will also be stocking an array of video games in regions such as NTSC, PAL, NTSJ and more, which will be good to see, and as we all know, Japanese games are increasing in popularity, so I think this is a good move by them.
Retro Ghetto also mentions that CEX are also playing around with the idea of stocking fully fledged arcade machines, offering "unique items, for unique prices" with staff "analysts" that will offer better buying and selling prices on the fly. In my opinion, what they need is more staff. Every time I am in my local stores, I am waiting over 10 minutes to buy a single game, so hopefully this new move comes with quicker times to attend to their customers too.
With Sony announcing the end of physical video games, more gamers moving back to retro, and the collectable product exploding around the world, it's a likely strategic, bold and on-trend business move that I think will work out well for them, but I do worry about its effect on independent retro game stores, especially if CEX offer more compelling trade-in values. Only time will tell; as usual, take this with a pinch of salt. CEX has not confirmed this, and it could all just be lies for some views, though I can't imagine Retro Ghetto would damage his credibility like that.
