Every year, it seems like we get ready for Black Friday earlier and earlier, as more stores encroach on Thanksgiving by opening their doors that much sooner to turkey time. With Sony and Microsoft's next-gen consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, releasing just around the ginomrous shopping time, this year's Black Friday is going to no doubt be huge.
Getting in on the anticipation, pictures of a flyer have seemingly leaked from GameStop, showing all the deals that the retailer will be offering for this year's Black Friday. There's just two problems:
1. If you were counting on deals for either the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, you're fresh out of luck. As Black Friday is right around when either console launches, there's unfortunately no real deals to be had.
2. GameStop has yet to verify if this leak is authentic, so we can't confirm that any of this deals are indeed accurate. Either way, the flyer will need to be re-printed as the flyer currently lists Watch Dogs and Drive Club, both of which were recently smacked with a delay.
However, provided the rest of the deals and listings are true, here's a brief summary of some of the better deals the retailer will be offering:
- Battlefield 4 will be available for $30
- Call of Duty: Ghosts will be available for $50
- Just Dance 2014 will be available for $20
- a Wii (not a WiiU) can be snagged for $40
- buy-one-get-one free deal on Disney Infinity toy sets
- highlights include a 250GB Xbox 360 bundle offering Tomb Raider and Halo 4 for $200, as well as a 250GB PlayStation 3 bundle with The Last of Us and Batman: Arkham Origins for the same price.
- if handheld is more your style, there's also a 3DS bundle with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for $220.
- other deals include Assassin's Creed III for $15, Halo 4: Game of the Year Edition for $30, Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition for $15, and BioShock: Infinite for $20, among others.
We'll keep you posted if GameStop ever verifies the authenticity of the flyers.
Microsoft's Xbox One launches on Nov. 22, and will be available in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, UK, and the United States for $499.
The new console claims an 8-core x86 processor and Microsoft hopes it will take the place of the family room cable box by letting you watch Blu-ray movies and TV through the console, in a "seamless transition" that lets players switch from playing games to watching shows and/or movies. It will come fully loaded with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.
A cross-country tour where Microsoft is demoing the system at various locations is already underway, and demo kiosks have begun arriving at certain retailers.
Under the hood, the PS4 boasts Supercharged PC architecture, X86 CPU, Enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB Unified Memory. It will support the same PlayStation Plus service as the Vita and PlayStation 3. However, a Plus subscription will be required for online multiplayer games, but not for additional media services like Netflix. Sony has also updated the Dual Shock controllers with a touch screen and improved shoulder triggers, and bundles the console with a headset.
Demo kiosks have already started making their way to various retailers, with more and more rolling out the closer we get to the console's launch date.
The PlayStation 4 is set to release on November 15 in North America and on November 29 in Europe. Day one games available for the system include Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Killzone Shadow Fall,Madden NFL 25, Minecraft, NBA 2K14, Need for Speed: Rivals, and more. It will retail for $399.
Be sure to keep checking back with Gamenguide for more of the latest updates.