Category: Video Games

The Best Black Friday Pokemon Deals: Cards, Games, and Plushies

Black Friday deals are here and there’s so much to look through, from the latest and greatest deals on tech to incredible console bundle deals. If you enjoy Pokemon, though, and have been searching the internet trying to find the best discounts on everything from cards to games to plushies, we’re here to help. In this roundup, we’ve gathered all of the best Pokemon deals that have popped up during Black Friday at a variety of retailers. To get started looking through them, click on one of the links below…

The Best Pokemon Deals During Black Friday:

Save Big on Pokemon Cards

Black Friday offers great deals at a variety of retailers, but some of the best deals on Pokemon cards can be found at Best Buy (see the full list of deals here) and on Amazon (see here). We’ve picked out some of our favorite deals below for you to look through, broken down by each retailer.

Best Buy Pokemon Card Deals

Amazon Pokemon Card Deals

Back to Top

Enjoy Discounts on Pokemon Games

There are a few great deals at the moment on physical Pokemon games that are worth taking advantage of if you own a Nintendo Switch. However, keep in mind that more games should pop up with discounts this Friday, and we’ll be sure to update this when they do. Amazon also has a couple of Black Friday accessory deals for Switch owners that are worth a look.

Pokemon Game Deals

Black Friday Nintendo Switch Accessory Deals

Back to Top

Pick Up These Adorable Pokemon Plushies

Pokemon Squishmallows are a massive hit, so you’ll be happy to know that GameStop is offering a Buy 2, Get 1 Free sale on toys and collectibles for Black Friday that includes some! We’ve featured the ones included in the sale below, along with a couple of additional Black Friday plush toy deals over at Amazon.

Back to Top

Show Off Your Love of Pokemon With These Collectibles From the IGN Store

The IGN Store is currently throwing a big Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale, and there are a couple of items in there for Pokemon fans to enjoy. Mainly, you can pick up a Lapras Funko Pop and a Piplup Funko Pop.

Back to Top

If you’re curious to see more Black Friday deals, we have several roundups for the sale event that are worth checking out. Whether you’re looking for more gaming deals – to which I’ll point you in the directions of our Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Black Friday deal roundups – or discounts on board games and tech, we’ve got a massive selection of deals covered. You can also learn more from our retailer roundups for Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Costco to see the latest and greatest deals available.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

This 3.3-foot USB-C to USB-A cable can be yours for $3 after a $7 Black Friday discount

Here’s a quick one: you probably need this USB-C to USB-A cable. Everyone needs a good-quality USB-C cable, right? Whether you’re charging off a power bank, topping up your VR controllers, connecting a phone to your laptop or hooking up your TV to a USB drive full of legally obtained video downloads, having a reliable cable that can do it all is incredibly handy. This one from Monoprice doesn’t cost a lot either, as it has been discounted from $10 to just $3 for Black Friday.

It’s a fast option too, sporting 10Gbps data transfers and rapid charging at up to three amps. In fact, it hits the USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard (what a great naming scheme) and it’s a simple, pocketable one metre or 3.3 feet long.

Read more

Soapbox: Ocarina Of Time’s Water Temple Was Tough, But It Doesn’t Deserve Its Reputation

Blue weighed shoes.

November 21st, 2023 marked the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Japanese launch. To mark this historic Hyrulean occasion, we’re running articles throughout the week dedicated to the game, our memories, and its legacy. Today, Jim looks back on one of the series’ most notorious temples…

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the first game that I ever played. Yes, Little Jim had to use a guide for a lot of it and I’d be lying if I said that he was in any way a completionist about the whole thing (Gold Skulltula? Never heard of it, mate) but I do distinctly remember playing the infamous Water Temple for the first time. It’s a story that I’m sure many of us can recount but, here’s the thing, I remember taking no issue with it.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Walmart Black Friday 2023: The Biggest Sale Is Live Now

It’s here: Walmart’s official Black Friday 2023 sale is now live for everyone. While the mega-retailer has been offering “early” Black Friday deals nearly all month (and the deals have been quite good) the official, final deals are finally here. So what’s on sale? It might be quicker to discuss what’s not on sale. Let’s take a look at all the best deals available in Walmart’s Black Friday sale.

Shortcuts

TV Deals

There really is no better time to buy a new TV than on Black Friday. And online shopping really helps here, because instead of trying to muscle a giant box into the trunk of your car, you can have it delivered for free when you order it online. That’s undoubtedly the way to go. For more discounts, check out our Black Friday TV deal roundup.

Video Game Deals

PS5 Console Bundle Deals for Black Friday

If you’re picking up a PS5 for yourself or someone on your list this holiday season, you’ll definitely want to grab one of these bundles. They’re the new “slim” model of the PS5, so they don’t take up as much room in your entertainment center. And they come packaged with a brand-new huge game at no extra charge. This is a no-brainer.

PS5 Game Deals

Speaking of PS5 games, a whole heap of them are on sale now. And while these deals are very good, it’s possible another retailer might drop the price lower on a game you want. Check out our PS5 Black Friday roundup to see the best prices at all retailers.

PS5 Controller Deals

You’re not going to find a lower price on DualSense controllers any other time of the year. Every color is on sale for $49 — including the brand-new metallic cobalt blue and volcanic red colors. This truly is the ideal time to pick up any extras you need.

Nintendo Switch Console Bundle Black Friday Deals

Just like the PS5 above, if you’re going to buy a Nintendo Switch this holiday season, you’ll want to get one of these bundles. You can choose either a standard Switch, the OLED model, or the more compact Switch Lite. Whichever you choose, you get a game at no extra charge. And if you get a non-Lite model, you also get three months of Nintendo Switch Online.

Nintendo Switch Game Deals

Lots of Nintendo Switch games are on sale now as well. Again, because game deals can vary quite a bit from retailer to retailer, you may want to peek at our Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals roundup to see if the game you want is cheaper elsewhere.

Nintendo Switch Online Deals

Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack gets you a good number of features that make the Switch a better system. You get access to classic games from NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, and GameBoy Advance, plus cloud saves and expansions to popular Switch games.

Xbox Console Bundle Black Friday Deals

Grab one of these Xbox Series X console bundles, and you’ll have dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of play time right out the gate.

Xbox Game Deals

Plenty of other Xbox games are on sale now as well. See our Xbox Black Friday roundup for even more deals.

Xbox Controller Deals

This is a great price for Xbox wireless controllers, which normally run $64.99 and up.

Meta Quest 2 Black Friday Deal

If you’re in the market for a VR headset, the Meta Quest 2 is the most affordable option by far. It also has the biggest and best library of games and apps. You could get the Meta Quest 3 for a faster processor and sharper display (see it at Walmart), but it costs twice as much.

Laptop Black Friday Deals

Anyone in the market for a new laptop can find plenty of good deals right now. Grab whatever one suits your needs.

Apple Deals

If you’ve had an eye on basically any popular Apple product, you can find it on sale for the lowest price of the year during Black Friday. Some retailers may drop the prices lower, so check out our full rundown of Apple Black Friday deals to see if that’s the case at the moment.

Home and Kitchen Deals

You’ll find no shortage of home and kitchen items on sale in Walmart’s Black Friday sale. You can save a bunch on items ranging from air fryers to bed sheets. You can check out Best Buy’s Black Friday sale for more home and kitchen deals on big-ticket items like appliances.

Outdoors and Sport Deals

Whether you want to get in shape, sit outside by a new firepit, or buy a trampline for the kids, you can find deals on all sorts of sporting goods and outdoor items for your home. Amazon’s Black Friday sale also has plenty of deals on these types of products.

Toy Deals

Now is the time to start your Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already. Stock up on items that will make the kids in your life happy over the holidays.

What Is a Walmart+ Membership?

If you want early access to theses deals, you’ll need a Walmart+ membership. A subscription costs $12.95 for a month (which is all you need to take advantage of the early sale), or $98 for a year. In addition to early sale access, members also get free shipping with no order minimum, returns from home, free delivery from the closest store, and more. It even gets you access to Paramount+, which is a pretty stellar bonus. You can learn more about the Walmart+ membership or sign up here.

Walmart’s Black Friday Hours

Want to take part in the IRL holiday rush? Walmart will be closed on Thanksgiving, but will open Friday bright and early at 6 a.m.

  • Monday-Sunday: 6am – 11pm

Walmart’s Extended Holiday Return Policy

According to Walmart’s website, “Most items purchased in-store or online from October 1, 2023, through December 31, 2023, are returnable until January 31, 2024. Marketplace seller participation varies. See the Return Policy for details.”

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Threads and Twitter.

Save £40 on the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless Headset for Black Friday

Wireless headsets are great, but there’s always the risk that you forget to charge them. Imagine sitting down for an evening of gaming with your pals, wrapping the earphones over your skull, and instead of hearing the roar of battle in Call of Duty or the pleasant ambience of Minecraft, you’re left to contend in silence with your own terrifying thoughts. “Fool,” they hiss like the many-headed hydra in the dead earphones of your chargeless headset. “If you’d picked up the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless in this year’s Black Friday sale, then with its astonishing battery-life, none of this would be a problem!”

Read more

The Best Black Friday SSD Deal for Your PS5: 2TB for Under $100 (Updated)

The Amazon Black Friday Sale has officially started, and currently there are a couple of 2TB PS5-compatible solid state drives that you can score for under $100: the Nextorage Japan 2TB SSD for $99.99 and the Silicon Power XS70 2TB SSD for $95.97. Both of these SSDs are fast enough to exceed the specs of the PS5’s stock internal SSD and come with a preinstalled heatsink that does a fine job of keeping things cool.

Black Friday Deal: Nextorage 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $99.99

This SSD fulfills all the requisites that make it PS5 compatible. It boasts sequential read and write speeds of 7300MB/s and 6900MB/s, which is much higher than the minimum recommendation of 5,600MB/s. It also includes a robust double-sided aluminum heatsink that’s preinstalled on the SSD. This is much better than some of the cheaper SSDs that only include thin graphite heatspreaders.

There’s an interesting story behind Nextorage Japan. Nextorage describes itself as a company that was “created by a group of ex-Sony engineers and staff with over 20 years of experience in the development of memory and storage products”. Nextorage was actually originally created by Sony in 2019 as an SSD sub-division about a year before the PS5 was released. Presumably this was to be the basis for an official SSD sold by Sony themselves. For whatever reason, Sony decided to ditch that idea and sold this business to another stakeholder in the company, Phison, in 2022. Phison is another large reputable company that specializes in solid state memory controllers. You’ll find their controllers in name-brand SSDs like Seagate, Corsair, and Sabrent. Under Phison, Nextorage Japan eventually accomplished the goal of releasing an SSD catered specifically for the PS5 console in the form of this product right here.

Black Friday Deal: Silicon Power 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $97.97

This new Black Friday SSD deal just recently went live. The 2TB Silicon Power XS70 SSD now costs $95.97 on Amazon. This SSD also also comes with a beefy preinstalled aluminum heatsink that’s designed to fit perfectly in your PS5 console. The XS70 boasts transfer speeds of up to 7300MB/s read and 6800MB/s write, comfortably faster than the 5500MB/s minimum recommended requirement.

Black Friday Deal: WD Black SN850X 4TB PS5 SSD for $229.99

The SN850X is the latest generation of WD’s flagship Black series M.2 SSDs. It’s easily one of the fastest SSDs on the market. There are only a few SSDs out right now that can match its speed. Off the top of my head, the only SSDs I can think of are the new Samsung 990 Pro and the SK Hynix P41 Platinum. The SN850X also makes for an excellent PS5 SSD. It is identical to the SN850P, which is the only officially licensed PS5 SSD on the market. The only caveat is that this particular model doesn’t include a built-in heatsink. That is easily remedied by picking up a PS5 heatsink off Amazon for $7.

Black Friday Deal: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB PS5 SSD for $249.99

The 990 Pro is Samsung’s flagship SSD and it is the fastest PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs on the market. Samsung claims a 50% improved performance per watt over its Samsung 980 Pro predecessor. It boasts blazing sequential speeds of 7,450MB/s read and 6,900MB/s write and random speeds of 1400K/1550K IOPS. Unlike most other SSDs, the components are manufactured in-house. The Samsung 990 Pro works superbly in your PS5, but from a purely performance perspective it’s overkill. Pick up PS5 heatsink off Amazon for $7.

All the Black Friday SSD Deals for your PS5 Console

What is a PS5-compatible SSD?

An SSD that expands your PS5’s storage is essentially the same SSD that goes into your gaming PC. However, because of the PS5 has certain requirements that must be met for full compatibility. These are:

  • The SSD and its heatsink must fit in the PS5 drive bay (requirement)
  • The SSD must have a PCIe 4.0 interface (requirement)
  • The SSD should have a minimum read speed of 5600MB/s (recommended)
  • The SSD should have a heatsink for proper cooling (recommended)

An SSD that is slower than 5,600MB/s should still work. In fact, if it’s close to the rated speed, you may never notice any difference. The reason Sony gives this recommendation is that the internal SSD that comes with the PS5 is rated at 5,600MB/s. If you add a slower SSD, you have a chance of bottlenecking the bandwidth on the internal SSD as well.

Likewise, you may not need a heatsink. SSDs are rated for higher temps than what you’d normally expect to achieve even inside a PS5 that’s runnig fult tilt. However, there’s no real airflow around the SSD bay and SSDs do get pretty hot, so we’d recommend getting a preinstalled heatsink or installing one yourself for peace of mind and potentially to prevent thermal throttling and extending the lifespan of your SSD.

Looking for more Black Friday deals like this? Check out our guide to PS5 Black Friday deals for 2023.

A Dinosaur Experience Remade on Unreal Engine 5 – ARK: Survival Ascended – 10 Reasons To Play

With ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) launching this week on Xbox Series X/S and joining the PC survivors already traversing the island, we thought we’d gather a list of reasons to play this new next-gen remake game! A top-to-bottom remake of the original game, so here are a few of the key differences you may have noticed in the gameplay trailer.

1. Modding: For the first time ever, ARK mods crafted on PC will be able to run on Xbox and PlayStation, extending the reach of modders for players across different platforms. Everything from new weapons, armor, and creatures to new fully-fledged game modes and remade maps will be easily available. Dive into modding at the ARK: Survival Ascended Curse Forge page! And check out the ARKathon mod contest!

2. Cross-Platform: With the launch of ARK: Survival Ascended, you can now go on this dino adventure with your friends no matter what platform you’re on. Form online tribes across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC and work together to survive and thrive on the ARK.

3. Unreal Engine 5: One of the biggest selling points of ARK: Survival Ascended is that the team at Studio Wildcard took what made ARK: Survival Evolved so great and recreated and redesigned its artwork and worlds in Unreal Engine 5. This allowed the team to take full advantage of such high-end graphics features as fully dynamic Lumen Global Illumination to let light realistically bounce off surfaces and provide such realistic reflections that you’ll believe you are looking through a window instead of a monitor. Unreal Engine 5’s advanced mesh streaming Nanite system, on the other hand, can use hundreds of millions of triangles to give extreme detail to everything from your player character to that terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex that’s chasing you and your friends. ARK has never looked better, and you’ll feel like you’re playing a new game now that it’s built with Unreal Engine 5.

4. Building Revamp: Are you a fan of base building? Say no more. ASA has a newly revamped building systems that allows players to construct the bases of their dreams. With QoL improved and over 15 new structures, from tilesets to decor to gameplay-enhancing TEK Teleporters, players have more choices when constructing their bases.

5. UI and UX Overhaul: When you first jump into ASA, you’ll notice an overhaul of the User Interface. It’s been punched up visually and given more functionality to enable you to tailor your experience to match your playstyle. The options are there if you’re looking for a more minimalistic UI to keep the immersion or something that covers all the details.

6. Dino Management: This new Dino-Manager system lets you view the status and location of all your creatures in one unified menu, so you’ll never have to worry about a creature wandering off again.

7. Quality of Life and New Features: It’s the little details, right? Studio Wildcard have implemented different tweaks to help improve the original experience. You now have access to a new general player and dino camera, providing a more dynamic experience as you move around this newly envisioned world, plus the option to customize it per creature. Inventory management has had some tweaks too, with players being directly able to change and craft ammo and access shoulder pet inventories directly from the special R-wheel or the ‘Fast Inventory’ system, which converts your entire inventory into a scrollable hotbar that streamlines the process of building different structures. Other things have gone added, like the dynamic navigation for intelligent creature pathfinding – good luck running away from a Raptor now! Encounter baby dinosaurs out in the wild for an easier time, or strategize the ultimate base-raid with the new Map and Ping System.

8. Photo Mode: Use the built-in capabilities to share screenshots and thumbnails with friends. With a deep dropdown menu of settings, you can get the perfect shots of your favorite dino, put on your director’s hat, and start filming the ARK movies you envisioned!

9. Remaking Original Content: ARK: Survival Ascended includes all of ARK’s worlds but is now remastered in UE5. This includes Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, ARK Genesis Part 1, and ARK Genesis Part 2! As of now, The Island is available with subsequent expansion worlds added on a regular basis.

10. Original Content: There will be new story content for ASA, further gameplay and QoL changes, new DLC, seasonal events, and over time, as well as a new creature released with each map drop for a total of 11 brand new creatures (more than any previous DLC expansions).

Studio Wildcard’s goal with ARK: Survival Ascended is to provide an evergreen adventure that re-energizes the classic-ARK experience. ARK: Survival Ascended is available now in Early Access on Steam and Xbox Series X/S, with PlayStation 5 releasing early December.

Review: Irem Collection Volume 1 (Switch) – Three Great Games, But One Slim Package

After image.

Founded in 1974, Irem, then known as IPM Co. Ltd, began as a distributor and assembler of arcade machines for general stores and other small independent businesses. It wasn’t until 1978 that the relabelled company released its own software.

Despite being shoot-’em-up focused, the Irem Collection Volume 1 sidesteps R-Type, the obvious choice, to deliver three alternative titles and their associated ports. Image Fight is a 1988 arcade game that made a strong impression in Japan. Although not instantly apparent owing to its extreme difficulty, it’s a brilliantly executed game that demands deconstruction, and famously inspired Hiroshi Iuichi in conceiving Treasure’s Radiant Silvergun.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Save your money and data with the 1TB WD Blue SN570 this Black Friday

Modern PC gaming is a constant battle for drive space, what with having to store huge games like Call of Duty: Warzone and similarly massive videos like my fail compilations in Call of Duty: Warzone. Hence, I’m always on the lookout for discounts on storage, and when it comes to reliable SSDs, you’ll struggle to find a better balance of quality and price than WD’s Blue SN570. That goes double when the best NVMe SSD for gaming is on sale, and right now you can get substantial savings on the 1TB SN570 this Black Friday.

Read more