Black Friday gaming deals 2023 - the best offers from this year's mega-sale

Black Friday gaming deals with DualSense, Xbox controller, and Nintendo Switch OLED
(Image credit: Future)

Black Friday gaming deals offer your best chance to save on must-have gear, so we've roused our bargain-hunters from their slumber in preparation of 2023's best discounts. What should we be looking out for, where are the top offers going to appear, and will we finally be able to get a darn PS5 console?

Because the team's been covering this sales event for quite some time, they don't need crystal balls or the power of foresight to predict what's coming in 2023's Black Friday gaming deals. We've seen savings of up to 50% on the year's hottest games before, and that means this is your chance to catch up on anything you've missed in the last few months. Hardware (like headsets and SSDs) is also guaranteed to be significantly reduced.

To make the most of these offers, check out the hints and tips listed below. No matter which platform you play on, they'll help you prepare for Black Friday gaming deals 2023.

Black Friday gaming deals - FAQ

A selection of games that might be on offer in the Black Friday gaming deals

(Image credit: WB, Sony, Ubisoft)

When will Black Friday gaming deals start?

The sales event of the year traditionally takes place toward the end of November - to be precise, the final Friday of the month. That means you can expect 2023's Black Friday gaming deals to occur on November 24.

However, they won't be limited to that one day. Black Friday kicks off much earlier than you might expect, and it continues into the following week as well (at which point the savings morph into Cyber Monday gaming deals). That means you should start keeping an eye out from mid-November - while the best discounts are reserved for Black Friday itself, lots of good ones will make an appearance before then. 

Should you wait for the Black Friday gaming deals?

Yes, you should definitely hold fire on any purchases until the Black Friday gaming deals kick off at the end of November. Like all tech, games get significant price cuts throughout the event and many items hit all-time lows. That includes everything from the latest PS5 titles to Xbox consoles, so there's little benefit to jumping the gun here.

However, on the flip-side of that, you'll need to be quick when the sales roll around. They can sell out quickly, and many form blink-and-you'll-miss-it 'Lightning Deals' on Amazon. In other words, stay alert throughout the week of Black Friday - getting the best reductions will depend on it.

Where will the best Black Friday gaming deals be?

Almost everyone tries to get in on Black Friday each year, so you can be sure that any retailer you visit will have price cuts of some description. Still, some are better than others. In our experience, these are the stores to prioritize:

USA

- Amazon: Usually the best for gaming discounts overall
- Dell: Offers a surprising variety of laptop discounts
- Best Buy: Offers surprisingly good PC peripheral deals
- Walmart: Good for general console game discounts
- Microsoft: Great for cheap Xbox games and accessories
- CDKeys: Heavy discounts on PC games
- Newegg: Excellent for PC components
- Gamestop: Regularly offers console bundles and merch discounts

UK

- Amazon: Traditionally the most reliable for variety and price-cuts
- Dell: Good for variety and powerful gaming laptop builds
- Currys: Great for Switch console bundles and general game deals
- Very: Regular discounts on games, consoles, and accessories
- Argos: Low prices often with same day delivery
- The Game Collection: Frequently has some of the best game prices
- CDKeys: Some of the best prices going on PC games
- Game: Big savings on merch and pre-owned games

Black Friday gaming deals - what to expect

Black Friday gaming deals

(Image credit: Future)

While Black Friday video game deals themselves get plenty of airtime, accessories receive the lion's share. Headsets, hard drives, and more are typically cut by huge amounts during the sale, and that makes it the best time to grab any peripherals you've had your eye on.

The best offers often feature subscription services like PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass, though. These always seem to get money off toward the end of November (as was the case again in 2022), and it's a great opportunity to renew your membership - or start a new one - ahead of the new year.

We've listed a few specifics based on platform below.

  • PlayStation: If you have any gaps in your game library from the past year or so, the Black Friday gaming deals offer you a chance to catch up. Everything from hot new releases to old favorites are discounted throughout the event, and those reductions are only matched by accessories for the platform (e.g. headsets and internal SSDs, which always get best-of-year offers). Oh, and don't forget about services like PlayStation Plus either. It's not unusual to see them drop in price during November.
  • Xbox: Games are star of the show in annual Black Friday gaming deals on Xbox. Both new and old titles from the last few years get dramatic cuts, so November is the perfect opportunity to try out anything you missed. Similarly, headsets and hard drives are worth looking into as well. These essential bits of kit get very decent savings, to the point that we'd actually hold off purchasing them until Black Friday rolls around. And as we said above, keep an eye out for services like Game Pass. It's not uncommon to see discounts on them around this time.
  • Nintendo: Even though official gear gets discounted in the Black Friday gaming deals, we usually enjoy a lot more reductions on third-party accessories like controllers from PowerA (the same is true of headsets, not to mention cases). There are usually some good Nintendo Switch bundles too. While these are snapped up fast and don't always include the very latest games, they're excellent value for money and make the perfect starter set for Nintendo's console. Speaking of games, these are normally slashed in price as well so it's a good time to fill up your shelf with the console's back-catalogue. Just don't expect loads of money off - the best we can usually hope for is $10 to $20.
  • PC: It's all about hardware for PC gamers. Keyboards, mice, headsets, and mics from across the spectrum get massive reductions of up to 60% or more, while prebuilt rigs also drop a few hundred dollars on the regular. In much the same way, laptops are worthy contenders for a saving. These machines receive some of the most noteworthy discounts of Black Friday, and those reductions are available everywhere from Amazon to Newegg. Considering the high price of the top gaming laptops to start with, Black Friday is the perfect opportunity to buy them as a result.

Will there be PS5 and Xbox Series X Black Friday gaming deals?

Discounts on PS5 or Xbox Series X games and accessories are a given for this year's Black Friday gaming deals, but we wouldn't count on reductions for the consoles themselves. They're selling much too well for that, and we can't imagine a price cut will land until smaller, slimmer versions of the machines hit shelves at some point in the future.

That said, a PS5 or Xbox Series X stock drop during the sales event is likely. While they'll still be hard to find due to component shortages and increased demand, we tend to get stock for both systems at least once a week so can imagine retailers holding some aside for Black Friday itself. Just don't expect them to last long...

Last year's best Black Friday gaming deals

Want to get a better idea of what you can expect from the annual Black Friday gaming deals? We've listed our favorite offers from 2022 below, and they should give you some inkling of what to focus on.

USA

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Oculus Quest 2 (128GB) + Beat Saber + Resident Evil 4 | $399.99 $349.99 at Amazon
Save $50 - In terms of good offers, Amazon took the cake. This was one of the best Black Friday gaming deals we saw in 2022 because you got two of the system's best games for $50 less than the price of the headset by itself. That made it downright ridiculous.

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Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + 3 months Nintendo Switch Online | $399 $299 at Walmart
Save $100 - The Switch's Black Friday mega bundle was back with a vengeance for 2022, and it packed an aggressively good $299 sales price that was the best you were likely to find. Because it featured one of the console's most popular games and an online membership, it was easily one of the best Black Friday gaming deals in terms of sheer value.

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WD BLACK SN850 PS5 SSD (1TB) | $179.99 $129.99 at Best Buy
Save $70 - As the most popular PS5 SSD, and potentially one of the best overall, this reduction was one of the highlights of the 2022 Black Friday gaming deals. Excellent bang for buck in general, and a great example of why it pays to wait until the November sales.

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Xbox Series X (Refurbished) | $499.99 $469.99 at Microsoft
Save $30 - Yep, that's money off a Series X console. And sure, it's not brand-spanking new. But unless you're opting for a bundle, there was no other way to save on an Xbox Series X. That made this a solid Black Friday offer.

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Xbox Series S | $299.99 $234.99 at Dell
Save $65 - Microsoft had already been doing very well for itself in the Black Friday gaming deals thanks to a $50 discount on the Series S, but then Dell swooped in with an even better offer. That was a record low price for the console, too. In other words? Always keep an eye on specialist retailers.

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D&D Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle |$19.99 $10 on Amazon
Save $10 - If you were tempted to try D&D, Amazon came in clutch with the lowest price we'd ever seen on the new starter set. It's a good example of how good most Dungeons & Dragons offers are come Black Friday.

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Alienware Aurora R13 (RX 6500 XT) | $1,449.99 $999.99 at Dell
Save $480 - Looking for a great starter PC setup? You couldn't do much better than this in the 2022 Black Friday gaming deals. It packed a solid punch for $999, harboring an i5-12400F processor, AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

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LG UltraGear 32GP83B | $499.99 $349.99 at Best Buy
Save $150 - That was a very, very tempting offer on a high-quality LG monitor in the 2022 Black Friday gaming deals. You were getting a 32-inch 1440p screen with a refresh rate of 165Hz, so we hope to see something similar this time around.

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Gigabyte G5 15.6-inch RTX 3050 Ti gaming laptop | $999.99 $549.99 at Best Buy
Save $450 - Another superb entry-level gaming laptop crashed down in price for the 2022 Black Friday gaming deals, and because you were getting the new RTX 3050 Ti for a massive $450 less, it really was superb value. This shows just how good the laptop discounts can be in November.

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PS5 DualSense Controller (White) | $69.99 $49 at Amazon
Save $21 - Getting your hands on an extra controller had never been cheaper before this. You were able to pick up a spare or replacement DualSense for a record low price in 2022, which just goes to show how much easier it is to get accessories for less during the Black Friday gaming deals.

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Samsung QD-OLED S95B 4K TV (55-inch) + FREE Xbox controller | $1899.99 $1,449.99 at Best Buy
Save $450 - TVs always get the best discounts on Black Friday, and sometimes you can get an awesome gaming-focused bargain like this. Perfect for jumping straight into Samsung's built-in Gaming Hub and Xbox App.

UK

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Oculus Quest 2 (128GB) + Beat Saber + Resident Evil 4 | £399.99 £349 at Amazon
Save £50 - This is by far and away the best offer we saw during 2022's Black Friday gaming deals. Considering how the headset by itself normally costs £399, getting it for £50 less with two free games in tow is absurd.

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Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + 3 months Nintendo Switch Online | £259.99 at Very
Because this bundle only ever shows up during the Black Friday gaming deals, it's absolutely not one to sleep on. We're hoping it'll return in 2023 for another showing, as it's the best offer you can get when it comes to the Switch.

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Xbox Series S | £249 £189 at Amazon
Save £60 - Yeah, that is an absurdly good deal on the Xbox Series S. We've not seen a better offer on the console for a long time, so it quickly became a standout in the 2022 Black Friday gaming deals. A great case in point for why you should wait until November to buy hardware.

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Xbox Wireless Controller | £54.99 £29.99 at Box
Save £25 - Frankly absurd value on the controller to go with the absurd value on the Series S above. This was the cheapest the controller had ever been, demonstrating how much further your money can go on accessories in November.

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Nintendo Switch OLED + Switch Sports | £341.99 £299 at Very
Save £42.99 - This was one of the best offers we'd seen for the Switch. Besides getting you the newer, nicer OLED model of console, you also received Switch Sports thrown in for less than the price of the console by itself. That's absolutely ridiculous by anyone's standard.

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Xbox Series X (refurbished) | £449.99 £419.99 at Microsoft
Save £30 - Short of getting a bundle, the only way to save on the new Xbox console is by getting it refurbished direct from Microsoft. Or at least, it was during Black Friday last year.

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HP Omen 25L + Warhammer 40,000 Darktide | £1,399.97 £999.97 at Box
Save £400 - This HP Omen 25L offered a pretty impressive discount for the Black Friday gaming deals last year, and getting an RTX 3060Ti GPU, DDR4 RAM, and an AMD Ryzen 7 processor with eight cores for this sort of discount is absurd. Oh, and the addition of Darktide was a very nice bonus as well.

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Asus TUF F15 15.6-inch (GTX 1650) | £729 £559 at Very
Save £170 - Because the TUF F15 was already an affordable machine, seeing it drop even further for the Black Friday gaming deals provided particularly good value. It shows how good the value can be on laptops during Black Friday.

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Gotham Knights | £64.99 £29.95 at Amazon
Save £35 - Wait, you're saying we could get this brand-new game for just under half-price? That's an absolute steal no matter how you slice it.

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Andaseat Phantom 3 | £279.99 £179 at Very
Save £100 - The Andaseat Phantom 3 is a very respectable gaming chair at the best of times, so seeing it drop by £100 in last year's Black Friday gaming deals was a solid example of why waiting until November can pay off... big time.


Gaming sales are some of the best on offer during Black Friday, and they aren't limited to one platform; we can look forward to Black Friday PS5 deals, Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals, and Black Friday Xbox Series X deals over the course of November. Unsurprisingly, this tech-heavy event will also be one to watch if you're hunting down Black Friday gaming PC deals or Black Friday gaming laptop deals. Those devices usually get the most scene-stealing discounts.

Benjamin Abbott
Tabletop & Merch Editor

As the site's Tabletop & Merch Editor, you'll find my grubby paws on everything from board game reviews to Lego buying guides. I have been writing about games in one form or another since 2012 and can normally be found cackling over some evil plan I've cooked up for my group's next Dungeons & Dragons campaign.