by 
The popular game store Beep Akihabara is being forced to move this month because the building it has been based in for the past 10 years is scheduled for demolition.
If you've been lucky enough in the past to visit Tokyo, Japan, in the pursuit of retro games or hardware, there's a good chance that you might have ended up in Beep at some or another point during your trip.
Situated in a quiet backstreet in Akihabara, down a long set of stairs, it is one of our favourite places to visit when in Akihabara, even in spite of its high prices, thanks to being home to a ton of incredible items you wouldn't usually find at other tourist hotspots like Super Potato and Retro Game Camp. Not only is it home, for instance, to hardware and games for old Japanese personal computers (PC-88, PC-98, X68000, and MSX), but it is also known to stock arcade boards, various aftermarket releases, and imported games from overseas, which you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.
As the company announced recently on Twitter/X, though, it will soon be forced to pack up and move elsewhere, with the Nakasakae Building, where it is based, being slated for demolition. The current store, according to Beep's website, will close on May 17th, with the company holding a sale on Beep merchandise to commemorate the end of an era.
At the moment, it's not clear exactly where the store will move to, but the company has promised that more information will be available in the coming days.
So, if you happen to find yourself in Japan over the next couple of weeks, it might be worth stopping by the old location while you still can.
Here are some photos from when we visited the store back in 2024: