It’s Black Friday tomorrow (Friday, November 25) and it’s a day where many people will brave their local shopping mall to celebrate this American tradition and hope for a bargain or two on a variety of goods.

I won’t be going anywhere near a shopping mall but if you are price aggregation website PriceSpy has predicted what it thinks will be the top video games searched for this Black Friday. Here they are:

• Fifa 21 (PlayStation 4)
• Nintendo Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo Switch)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5/PS4)
• Fifa 21 – Champions Edition (Xbox One)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (PS4 and due December 10)

Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett, New Zealand country manager for PriceSpy, says  “After a crazy year where new game purchases were put on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns, we’re expecting Black Friday to be big this year, as gamers will want to make up for lost time.

“In fact, according to a recent PriceSpy survey, 50 per cent of Kiwis intend to purchase something this Black Friday, spending on average $464.

“As well as games dropping in price on Black Friday, with two sparkly. new consoles released earlier this month, Black Friday may also offer a good time for gamers to pick up great deals on older consoles.  But before shoppers splurge the cash, we strongly recommend they conduct important price research,” says Matinvesi-Bassett.

“On Black Friday last year, the shopping category of game consoles was third most-popular on PriceSpy and the most-popular product overall was the Nintendo Switch.

“But, shoppers need to remember – not everything is discounted on Black Friday, as even though the Nintendo Switch was most popular, our pricing data revealed the console increased in price (up 8 per cent).

“There are however some great deals to be found on Black Friday, but shoppers need to do their research.  For example, the shopping category of games and consoles offered the biggest overall average discount on Black Friday, at -11 per cent across all items.  Compared to other shopping categories, the discounts were less significant – mobile phones for instance, only offered an average discount of -2 per cent.”

To help gamers ensure they’re getting the best Black Friday deals, PriceSpy has some tips to prepare for Black Friday:

• Step one – Be prepared and stay focussed Firstly, make a list of the items you are consciously looking to buy, similar to what you might do with a supermarket shop. You can do this quickly and easily using PriceSpy’s list feature, so that your ultimate wish-list is in the one place. 
• Step two – Conduct price research Once you’ve compiled your sale shopping list, we strongly suggest you carry out important historical price research. You can do this quickly and easily using a price comparison website, like PriceSpy. Not only will this save you time, but it will help alleviate some of the pressures people feel when sale shopping. Simply search for the product you want to buy and click on the historical pricing feature.  The website will then bring up the cheapest price the product has been sold for by day, so you can get a clear perspective on how much a product ‘really’ costs. So, even if an item is being discounted by 20 per cent for example on Black Friday, shoppers can see if it is cheaper to buy at different times of the year. If the product appears to be cheapest on PriceSpy, then great, you may have found yourself a bargain – move on to step three!  If the product appears to cost less at another time of the year, then this should be a red flag! 
• Step three – Compare prices across multiple shops Once you’re confident the price being offered by the retailer on the sale day is a good deal, the next step to take to ensure you are getting the cheapest price possible is to conduct a quick price comparison check against other retailers. Again, using the PriceSpy app or website can help shoppers do this research quickly and easily, rather than wasting hours trawl across multiple stores. Even though products have an RRP (recommended retail price), more often than not, comparing prices between retailers can change massively.  Carrying out this research can potentially save you a couple of hundreds of dollars, if not more in some instances. 

Lastly, Matinvesi-Bassett advises that the Black Friday price on your wish list game isn’t as big as what you expected it to be, wait three months after the game is first launched – as Pricespy’s historical pricing data suggests this is when prices start to reduce.

So are you going to hunt for a Black Friday bargain on Friday? I’m contemplating a second monitor for my PC but in the meantime, PriceSpy has teamed up with GamejunkieNZ to give away two of the top two most clicked on games in September.

To enter the giveaway, flick an email to gamejunkienz@gmail.com telling me what your favourite game has been in 2020 or your most anticipated game for the coming year.

The competition closes on Wednesday, December 2, and is open to New Zealand residents only [The winner will need to supply a New Zealand postal address].

Good luck.