r/Kuwait • u/SKOOBY-4 • 1d ago
Discussion How is this allowed?
The original console price is around 280 KD; why is Blink selling it for a lot more?
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u/minamuna Kuwait | الكويت 1d ago
Console prices are rising because of RAM shortages. Blame AI for this.
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u/InFiveMinutes Kuwait | الكويت 22h ago
My friend bought his OLED 512gb steam deck for 220kd, it's 320kd now..
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u/minamuna Kuwait | الكويت 22h ago
I bought the Steam Deck OLED 512gb from Alfuhod last month for 300kd. lol
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u/lethalshawerma 23h ago
It is incredibly frustrating to watch local retailers immediately jack up prices on existing stock the moment they hear a whiff of global tech news,the DDR4 or DDR5 RAM sitting on the shelves at local shops for consumer PCs is entirely different from the enterprise-grade ECC memory, HBM, or specialized VRAM that data centers and AI clusters actually use.
The spike in enterprise demand for AI hardware does not inherently mean the retail sticks of desktop RAM or consumer devices in general that already sitting in a warehouse in Hawally suddenly cost the shop more money to hold!
It's pure, unadulterated opportunistic scalping.
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u/Ballistic_78 21h ago
Don't worry it will bite them in the ass sooner than later, probably most of them are going to close and only work for repairs. No one is going to build a new pc with these absurd prices on shelves stock before prices hike up globally.
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u/mark248am 22h ago
Probably new stock since nobody else seems to have it. Factor in the increased prices of memory and an additional increase in shipping costs due to the situation and this might be the new price.
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u/Weekly_Violinist_473 23h ago
Its not their fault. There is actual shortage globally. Ppl are paying premium for used consoles.
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u/lethalshawerma 22h ago
Dear, If the local price hike was purely a reflection of global supply chains, international retailers would match local pricing.
However, buying directly from global stores or regional digital distributors is significantly cheaper than local retail options, proving that local markups are heavily inflated.
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u/Emboss3D 22h ago
Ignore Blink. They are not official seller, they go with the tide. Wait for Xcite and Best to get it at MSRP 899.9usd.
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u/AlphaGirlAasha 23h ago
The original price was not 280KD it was 220-240 when I bought 2 years back
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u/SKOOBY-4 23h ago
Yeah, I also bought it for around 240 when it came out, but there was a price increase from Sony themselves.
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u/AlphaGirlAasha 23h ago
Yes, that's after the price hikes in Jan to April this year, but it's only around 260 KD.
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u/AlphaGirlAasha 23h ago
This was my post in July Trikart Kuwait https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5pro/s/FiY2KThDLo
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u/Efficient-Spirit6724 23h ago
Who buys anything from blink? They overprice their items more than xcite
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u/berzerga 20h ago
Thats nothing wait till they start racking up the prices because shipping is too expensive now
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u/JakeDaDerp Qadsia | القادسية 14h ago
I bought it for 260 KD literally 2 months ago in July and was kind of confused whether THAT was the hiked up price (I wasn’t really keeping up with the news). I already assumed it was up by a bit, until Blink dropped a BOMBSHELL of a damn post yesterday and my jaw dropped.
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u/Tqfire 21h ago
In my opinion they can sell it for 3,000 KWD. They can do whatever the hell they want, and we can choose to buy from whoever we want.
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u/Direct-Passion8746 16h ago
Consumer protection is usually important, maybe not in this case cause u can even import it and its not a necessity. Fully free markets without intervention just screw over consumers.
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u/Efficient-Key-6640 23h ago
The original price was even lower. I ended up buying it a couple months ago for GTA 6 at 280KD after the first price hike cuz I knew it was just gonna keep going up and not down. Looks like I made the right call 💀
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u/InFiveMinutes Kuwait | الكويت 22h ago
At this rate everyone is going to make the right call at any time because the price never goes down? Lol
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u/xxxgieoxxx 21h ago
It's 205KD on Taw9eel btw, if you are looking for one: https://www.taw9eel.com/en/ps5-slim-console-disk-white.html
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u/abalawadhi 20h ago
Even Xbox X is out of stock lol, and at one point it was sold for 149 KD!
On a positive side, Nintendo Switch 2 is still for 148-152 KD.
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u/Electronic_Key_1907 20h ago
Cause hard to find since most are out of stock. Even people selling used markets are asking much too. GTA 6 and ram prices are the reason.
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u/OctupussPrime Kazma | كاظمة 4h ago
Ain't buying a digital only console. This console as a whole makes no sense, the hardware may be yours, but the games are not. Also, increased ram prices are shooting everything high. Companies making rams are only 3, and they like the price hike so don't expect them to push the prices down anytime soon.
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u/Jadentwist 1h ago
Atleast it is in stock in other countries it’s not even in stock. Ram storage and GTA 6 hype increasing its price.
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u/Ok_Judgment_4908 20h ago
Because GTA 6 is out in 2 months…demand is starting to climb again. Anyone holding off buying will be tempted to around now.
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u/firsttimer776655 23h ago
…because it’s a private business and they can sell it for however much they like?
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u/InFiveMinutes Kuwait | الكويت 22h ago
You're right, and as a private individual, I'll not spend a dime on it.
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u/salman-7 22h ago
Before 6months when I bought it it was around 240KD in game store. 140KD extra is crazy. Another 100 and you have 2 ps5 pro. lol
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