Amazon Prime Day 2026 may be officially over, but the best Best Buy gaming deals didn’t clock out when the Prime Day banner came down. While Amazon’s four-day shopping event ran June 23–26, Best Buy — never one to let a rival steal the entire spotlight — kept a solid slate of gaming discounts live well into the post-Prime Day window. If you missed the hype cycle, that’s actually fine. The crowds are gone, and the deals are still there.
- Best Buy gaming deals are still live after Amazon Prime Day 2026, covering Nintendo Switch, PS5, and more.
- The best Best Buy gaming deals include discounts of at least 20% off, making now a smart time to buy.
- Amazon Prime Day 2026 ran June 23–26, but competing retailers like Best Buy extended comparable offers.
- Prime members also get free games through Amazon Luna, including Mafia III and Tomb Raider remasters.
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Why Best Buy Gaming Deals Deserve Attention After Prime Day
There’s a persistent myth that Amazon is the only place worth shopping during Prime Day week. The reality is that competing retailers have spent years refining their counter-programming strategy. Best Buy in particular has become a reliable destination for Best Buy gaming deals that match or closely track Amazon’s discounts — without requiring a paid membership to access them.
That matters more than people give it credit for. A Prime membership carries an annual cost. If you’re only signing up to shop Prime Day, the math doesn’t always work out — especially when Best Buy is sitting right there offering comparable markdowns on Nintendo Switch hardware, PS5 bundles, controllers, and games. The value proposition for non-Prime shoppers has quietly improved every year.
The deals worth targeting are those discounted by at least 20% from their established retail price — not an inflated ‘original’ price that conveniently ballooned a few weeks before the sale. Price-tracking tools are your best friend here. Sites like CamelCamelCamel let you verify a product’s actual price history before you commit, which is the single most important step in separating genuine discounts from theatrical ones.
Nintendo Switch and PS5: Where the Value Is
Among the Best Buy gaming deals still live at time of writing, Nintendo Switch hardware and accessories represent some of the strongest discounts. Nintendo is historically stingy with markdowns — the company rarely needs to discount its hardware aggressively because demand tends to do the work for them. So when Switch deals do appear, they’re worth taking seriously. Whether it’s the standard Switch, the Switch Lite, or bundles that include game cards, any meaningful discount on Nintendo hardware is relatively rare by industry standards.
PS5 deals are a different story. Sony’s console has become much more widely available since the supply chain nightmares of 2021 and 2022, and that availability has finally translated into real competitive pricing. Bundles pairing the PS5 with first-party titles like Spider-Man 2 or Horizon Forbidden West have appeared at notable discounts, making this a reasonable entry point for anyone who held off during the scarcity era.
It’s also worth paying attention to accessories — controllers, headsets, and charging docks — where the discounts can be proportionally even steeper than on the consoles themselves. A DualSense controller at 25–30% off is the kind of deal that doesn’t require much deliberation.
Best Buy Gaming Deals Selection Criteria
Not every sale tag is worth your time, and filtering signal from noise is genuinely the hardest part of shopping these events. The standard for Best Buy gaming deals worth highlighting comes down to a few concrete factors: the discount has to be at least 20% off the established market price, the item should either rarely go on sale or be at its lowest recorded price, and customer reviews need to reflect real-world satisfaction — not just early-adopter enthusiasm.
Gaming hardware and software reviews tend to be more useful than those in other categories because gamers are a vocal, specific crowd. They’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong with a controller’s drift, a headset’s mic quality, or a game’s performance on a particular platform. That granularity makes customer feedback a genuinely reliable signal here in a way it sometimes isn’t for, say, kitchen appliances.
Amazon Prime Members Still Get Free Games
If you do have a Prime membership, there’s a separate layer of value worth knowing about that has nothing to do with Best Buy. Through Amazon Luna — the company’s cloud gaming service — Prime members can claim a rotating selection of free digital titles during Prime Day season. The June 2026 lineup includes Mafia III Definitive Edition, Tomb Raider IV/V/VI Remastered, and the XCOM Enemy Unknown Complete Pack, alongside a collection of indie titles pulled from the GOG catalogue.
These aren’t throwaway titles. Mafia III’s Definitive Edition is a full open-world crime narrative with all DLC included. The Tomb Raider remaster package covers three classic-era entries in the franchise. XCOM Enemy Unknown is still one of the most respected turn-based strategy games of the past decade. For a subscription that many people already hold for shipping benefits, the gaming add-on is genuinely underrated.
Prime members can also claim exclusive perks through Twitch — in-game items, currency drops, and cosmetic bonuses tied to popular live-service games. These vary month to month and are easy to miss if you’re not watching your Twitch account’s ‘Prime Gaming’ section regularly.
The Bigger Picture: Retail Competition Is Good for Gamers
Zoom out from the individual deals for a moment. What’s actually happening during Prime Day week is a healthy retail arms race. Amazon forces competitors to respond, and those competitors — Best Buy, Walmart, Target — have gotten much better at matching fire with fire. The result is that consumers who shop across multiple platforms during these events consistently find better prices than those who stick to one retailer out of loyalty or convenience.
For gaming specifically, this competition comes at an interesting moment. The console cycle is maturing. The PS5 Pro launched late in 2024, Nintendo’s Switch successor — the Switch 2 — arrived in 2025, and both platforms are settling into a period where the library depth, not just the hardware, is the real selling point. Discounts on games matter as much as discounts on consoles right now, and that’s exactly where multi-retailer competition creates the most value for buyers.
The Best Buy gaming deals still running post-Prime Day are a reminder that the best time to buy isn’t always the most hyped time to buy. Once the Prime Day countdown clock expires and the influencer coverage dies down, the deals that remain standing tend to be the ones that were actually worth having in the first place.
Source: ZDNet
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Best Buy gaming deals as good as Amazon Prime Day offers?
In many cases, yes. Best Buy regularly matches or comes close to Prime Day pricing during the same window, making it worth checking both retailers. Deals on Nintendo Switch, PS5, and accessories have been competitive enough to stand on their own merits without a Prime membership.
When did Amazon Prime Day 2026 take place?
Amazon Prime Day ran from Tuesday, June 23 to Friday, June 26. Some retailers, including Best Buy, launched their own competing sales around the same period.
Do Amazon Prime members get free games during Prime Day?
Yes. Prime members can claim free digital titles through the Amazon Luna service. The lineup included Mafia III Definitive Edition, Tomb Raider IV/V/VI Remastered, and XCOM Enemy Unknown Complete Pack, plus indie titles via GOG.
What should I look for to know if a gaming deal is actually worth it?
Focus on discounts of at least 20% off the established retail price, and use price-tracking tools to confirm the item hasn’t just been inflated before the sale. Customer reviews and real-world usage feedback are also worth checking before committing.
