Amazon has opened its doors on its first wave of early Black Friday deals this week, and there are plenty of discounts for gamers on those shelves. The official sale is branded 'Holiday Deals', but we all know what that means. Like other retailers (Best Buy, Dell, and Newegg), Amazon regularly launches early offers like this once November kicks off, which means more time to browse for discounts.
Right now, savings are pretty geared towards PS5 and PC players, but there are a few Xbox offerings up for grabs as well. New PS5 Pro owners will be glad to see some record-low prices on games and controllers, but PC-compatible headsets are also joining the fray. Of course, you can view the full Holiday Deals sale to go at your own pace, but I'm rounding up my top five favorite deals below.
These are all discounts I would class as early Black Friday gaming deals. They offer record-low prices on some of the highest value tech around, making for a particularly potent discount. Many of these record discounts haven't been seen before, so games and accessories are sitting cheaper than ever right now. I've also only featured the gadgets and gizmos that the GamesRadar+ team recommends based on testing and comparing with similarly priced gadgets, so you know you're not picking up duff kit.
Amazon's Holiday Deals at a glance
- PS5: up to 50% off Final Fantasy and more
- Switch: consoles from $179
- Xbox: storage cards from $199.99
- Controllers: Razer from $54
- Handhelds: $110 off ROG Ally
- Headsets: Logitech from $38.49
- Keyboards: up to $50 off SteelSeries
- Laptops: Acer from $799.99
- Mice: starting from $19.99
- Monitors: Samsung Odyssey from $159.99
- PCs: starting from $543
- Racing wheels: Logitech from $239.99
- SSDs: Samsung from $52.99
Should you wait for Black Friday?
It's always tricky knowing whether to wait it out or dive in ahead of official Black Friday deals, especially once we're into November. This is when retailers really start to ramp up their discount offerings, stretching their holiday sales out over a course of weeks. We're fully in the thick of it now, though - prices have been falling since mid-October and seem to be staying down overall. While it's impossible to say what will happen when November 29 rolls around, I've seen enough of these events to say a record-low price now is well worth jumping on.
I typically see retailers ramping up their sales around two - three weeks out from Black Friday itself. And many of the same prices are on the shelves come that Friday morning. That's not to say more discounts won't join them - but in general, if a gadget takes a drop to a new record-low price now, it's unlikely to move further during the official sale.
Where a product has been at a record-low price for some time, that guidance changes a little. A device that has been camping on the same discount for a matter of months could well take a further price drop later in the month. The actual cash saved is going to depend on the value of the item in question. An extra saving on a $30 PS5 game isn't going to hurt as much as an extra $100 off a high-end gaming monitor. The cheaper the item is, the less those extra Black Friday price cuts will offer.
We're also getting you prepped for all this year's Black Friday PS5 deals, Black Friday Xbox deals, and Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals as well.
