Three weeks folks til Black Friday, which is the biggest or second biggest shopping day in the US.

Keep your eyes open for major promotions, and put them in the thread. Will try to put an article up when everything is out. We usually get info from the big three about Black Friday too.

Couple factors heading into Black Friday this year before any deals are known:

- Kinect is not supply constrained at all in the US, it's slowed quite a bit and stock should still be plentiful

- Wii & PS3 are $50 cheaper than last year before any deals kick in.

- 3DS should do well - new Mario, price cut, first Christmas

- Wii will be entering Black Friday fresh off Zelda, Zumba 2, Mario & Sonic 2012, and Rayman Origins...plus whatever hardware discounts come. DKC only did 500k week one last year in the Americas, Zelda should be a much bigger push and comes around a week before BF. Wii has been $125-$135 sporadically in the past half year, but has never really been lower than that ever - look for deals around $100. It's also possible Wii will see most of the Spring price cut impact over Christmas ala 2009 (the 2009 price cut did gangbusters in Oct-Dec and then faded pretty quickly - 2011 cut did little in spring, might do more over Oct-Dec).

- Most major X360 games will be out way ahead of Black Friday, but the new Assassin's Creed is Nov 15, as is Rayman Origins, about 10 days before BF. Disneyland Kinect is Nov 15 too. Modern Warfare is Nov 8, and so will already be 'quieting down' (relatively speaking) by the end of November. X360 w/ Kinect bundles have been getting giftcards with purchase (free) for 6 months now - so that bundle will need to be under $250 to drive a lot of hardware.

- PS3 is basically the same as the X360 schedule for late November - pretty minimal actually with everything out by Nov 15. No Kinect games though. The PS3 has never been under $250 even with giftcards, so any promotions to $200 or less should be pretty big lifts.

- DS could also lift quite a bit if DS Lite / DSi / DSi XL get further cuts from the recent changes.

what no kinect games this year from Sony?shit i got to sell my PS3 and change to Xbox to get me some Move-Bitch-Shit ^^

nah just kidding...great thread...of course Xbox will dominate this...they always got the best offers in the US...with Zelda and some good bundles i see Wii also coming out of its hole and Ps3 will of course doing fine...not more not less!

Are there any 3DS deals this year?

Black Friday is going to be fun this year.

The same deals like last year :(.


For the ones wondering what the date is for Black Friday (25 november)...

Good analysis but 360 has had sporadic gift cards last 6 months. Now it seems they are constant. Nearly every major retailer has them this week. Over past several months they just changed where you purchased a 360 from. With nearly every retailer doing it then sales should really get a boost. Best Buy currently has a $100 gift card deal on 360 with Kinect. See the Holiday Console Hardware Deals thread.

No offence OP, but you are just stating the obvious.

Black.... Friday? You guys in the US made a holiday out of this?!?!

I wish Black Friday spread outside the US :S

Black Friday isnt a holiday. It is the day that most retailers achieve being in the black for the year. Sales post it determine the profitability for the year, This is all theoretical of course. Retailers have taken this as a day to have special deals to try to kickoff the holiday spending frenzy and draw people into their stores 1st with some eye opening deals.