PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — CD Game Exchange has closed its last store after 23 years in Portland, but a new video game store will soon take the place of its flagship SE Hawthorne Boulevard location.
The former five-store retail chain of the greater Portland metro area was known for selling video games, DVDs and music, but the new Hawthorne Game Exchange store will stick to one location and narrow its inventory focus.
Hawthorne Game Exchange is owned by Mo Troper, a born and raised Portland musician and writer who worked at the previous franchise.
“[I] had been coming here since I was 7. So it’s a store that I’m most familiar with as a customer and a fan of video games and music,” Troper told KOIN 6 News.
Two other former employees of the old store will also help run the new store, which is slated to open Dec. 9. The transition was also supported by Dave Goshien, the original business owner of CD Game Exchange, Troper said. The franchise shuttered its last location — on Hawthorne — last week.
All three of the staff for the new store are also musicians and they are planning to utilize the space for artists of all ages to occasionally perform.
“Everything good about that old store is going to remain, but now we’re going to have shows and arcade machines back there. It’s going to be so cool,” Hawthorne Game Exchange manager Chris Hanson said.
Vintage arcade cabinets will be available for customers to play in addition to the retro video games and vinyls for sale.
Fans of game systems such as Sega Dreamcast or Nintendo 64 should be pleased with the store’s inventory.
As part of updating the business model, the new store will mostly eschew with selling DVDs and CDs, the later of which is expected to be outsold by vinyls this year for the first time since 1986.