Welcome to Pricefall, the corner looking to direct your wallet this holiday season. This week we’ve got two retailers with deals potentially better than the ones later this month, a sneak-peek at some early Black Friday ads that leaked, and the return of Dragon’s Dogma. Let’s begin:
Retail Sales
At this time of the month, gamers should be cautious with their money and consider the release dates of what they’re interested in. Games released in August or September are prone to being $30-35, those released in late September to mid-October usually fall between $35-40. Rarely will a November game join that group but it does happen sometimes (Assassin’s Creed is notorious for this). We already know that BJ’s Wholesale will have both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 for $33.99 and others will most likely be around that level too. As such, I’ll keep this in mind when discussing retail sales as decent deals on the surface become less impressive when you know it’ll be cheaper in every store and online in 2-3 weeks.
Best Buy
Best Buy has a Buy 1 Get 1 40% off on select games for the week of 11/6 to 11/12. This deal only becomes decent on three of the eight games with GCU. Normally the price is $95.98 ($59.99 + $35.99), a complete non-sale no matter what. For GCU members this drops by 20% and turns into $76.79 – a bit better as each game now is $38.40. This is still technically inferior to last week’s sale at Target with its 10% coupon, though if you’re only after two games it’s satisfactory. If you want Dishonored 2 then this changes a bit: the game releases 11/10/16 and that price should be lower than any offering for a physical copy. Similarly, if you recently bought any of the games in the sale and still have it sealed, go make a return-rebuy with a second game from the list. The three main games this works well on (for now) are:
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare – $59.99 (PS4 / XB1)
Dishonored 2 Limited Edition – $59.99 (PC / PS4 / XB1)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition – $59.99 (PS4 / XB1)
Target
Target has what may very well be the best deal on the Xbox One this holiday season going on this week if you held back from using that 10% off Target wish list code. It applies to consoles too, meaning that you technically can apply it to the Playstation 4 (Pro) or the Xbox One (S). This week they have an additional sale: “free Xbox One game with purchase of any Xbox One console. Text XBOX to Target (827438) for coupon delivered to your smartphone.”
Stacked with the 10% off code mentioned last week, the deal shines. The best are:
Xbox One 500GB Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle – $249.99
Xbox One S 500GB Battlefield 1 Bundle – $299.99
Other options do exist, though these have the best bang for your buck, with a possible 500GB Xbox One with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and a newly released game for $225. That said, considering installs can be as big as 130GB it may be worth the extra $45 to make it 1TB and add the extra two games. If you just want the latest model, then $270 for it, Battlefield 1, and a free game should suffice, especially as the sale goes on all week so Dishonored 2 is a valid option assuming you don’t go for it at Best Buy.
Black Friday
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, called as such for being the biggest shopping day of the year. It’s gone from one day to one weekend and that has turned into anywhere from one week to the entire month of November. The “day” is its own spectacle now, with ads constantly coming in throughout the month only to be revised in the last week. These ads have a way of making sales during the month useless. Based on the ads out at the moment, the following seems to be the general trend for consoles:
- Xbox One S 500GB bundles will normally be $249.99
- Xbox One S 1TB bundles will normally be $299.99
- Playstation 4 (Slim) 500GB Uncharted 4 bundle will be the main one and be $249.99
Sales on the old Xbox One and Playstation 4 models remain unknown and there’s nothing on the Wii U, 3DS, or Vita yet either. For now, here are two early ones we know about: Kohl’s and BJ’s Wholesale.
Kohl’s
Kohl’s is always an odd one for people to hear about but it consistently has fantastic deals on consoles due to their cashback offering: $15 back in Kohl’s cash for every $50 spent. This means that the PlayStation 4 500GB Uncharted 4 Console Bundle or the Xbox One S Minecraft Console Bundle are $249.99 with $75 back that you can use the week after. If you’re a regular shopper, that’s as good a deal you’ll find. The downside to this? These sales are consistently in-store only and physically going to stores may not be worth the discount.
BJ’s Wholesale
Primarily known on the East coast, BJ’s Wholesale is a subscription-based store like Costco or Sam’s Club where you generally buy in bulk to save money. Sometimes they have other deals or coupon offerings and that’s what we see here: three games are listed in the ad. I’m not going to tell anyone to rush out there to get a subscription; to those with it, great. For most people, this ultimately serves as a piece of knowledge to what these games will be priced at over at Amazon, Target, or Best Buy. If you’re interested in one of the games pictured, hold onto your wallet for just a bit longer and get it for $30-35.
Battlefield 1 – $33.99
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens – $33.99
Titanfall 2 – $33.99
Humble Monthly
Didn’t we just have Dragon’s Dogma on sale for $11.99? Yep. Well, Humble Bundle wants to make sure that anyone who didn’t jump on that then does so now – and gets a few more games for the wait. The December monthly bundle has it as the feature game and you’ll get the key for it immediately after subscribing. If you pay for the month and cancel immediately after the cost will be $12.00. You can jump on it now or wait to see if anybody else decides to go crazy with this game later this month. I’ll remind you before time’s up either way.
That’s all for Pricefall today! I intend to get something ready for the middle of the week as there’s plenty of deals starting to roll in and hopefully I can catch up fast enough to write about them for you.
(Full Disclosure: the Best Buy links above are affiliate links, meaning we get a fraction of money spent on your purchase, which is used to pay our server fees.)
