The Best Black Friday Gaming Deals: All the Same, Really
Where video games are concerned, you’re never going to see the kind of crazy Black Friday price cuts that you will from other products, because gamers are usually knowledgeable about their hobby. A generic electronics company can occasionally put out a usable gadget. Can a low-budget game studio recreate a triple-A title at a fraction of the price? Highly unlikely. This means you won’t find people in line at 4am for a $10 Call of Duty knock-off, though they will brave the elements for a deeply discounted 50-inch HDTV from a brand no one’s ever heard of.
That doesn’t mean that good video game deals are impossible to find. Thanks — I guess — to the threat that Best Buy is facing from online giants like Amazon, the old-school seller is paying a bit more attention to the Black Friday deals that online retailers are offering, matching them without making you walk up to the customer service counter with an Amazon.com printout.
The only bad news? The good Black Friday deals are pretty much limited to the last generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. As I assumed would be the case, Sony and Microsoft’s newest consoles, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, both have demand that is outpacing their respective supplies. So neither company is particularly motivated to discount software in order to move hardware — right now, there really isn’t any hardware available to move.
Anyway, let’s get to it. Here’s what you can find and where.
Xbox 360
- Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, $34.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Call of Duty: Ghosts, $44.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Madden NFL 25, $35, Amazon / Best Buy
- Batman: Arkham Origins, $29.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Battlefield 4, $24.99, GameStop
- Splinter Cell: Blacklist, $24.99, Amazon
- Saints Row IV, $29.99, Amazon / Best Buy
PlayStation 3
- Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, $34.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Call of Duty: Ghosts, $44.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- The Last of Us, $34.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Beyond: Two Souls, $34.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Madden NFL 25, $35, Amazon / Best Buy
- Batman: Arkham Origins, $29.99, Amazon / Best Buy
- Battlefield 4, $24.99, GameStop
- Splinter Cell: Blacklist, $24.99, Amazon
- Saints Row IV, $29.99, Amazon / Best Buy
This list was compiled after searching most major online and brick and mortar retailers. As you can see, Best Buy and Amazon pretty much won out as far as the sheer number of deals on newer titles are concerned. Stores like Sears, Target, JCPenny, etc? Didn’t even register. GameStop, a store that actually has its entire focus on video games, shows up just once — this probably isn’t a surprise to most gamers, though.
See any deals that should be added to the list? Give us a holler.