After Amazon dropped its top electronics of the year guide over the weekend, it’s now time to prepare for Nintendo Black Friday. This year is heating up quick and we expect Nintendo’s hit console to appear in just about every major ad of the year. The big N will, however, have a series of its own deals and is likely readying its usual Black Friday Edition hardware offerings. Head below for everything you need to know on how to get your hands on the special releases and the best deals on Nintendo gear for the holidays.
When is Black Friday at Nintendo?
Nintendo Black Friday isn’t like your typical national retailer, but it will have loads of digital deals via the eShop and more. Last year, some its Black Friday-Specific hardware was announced on November 2nd and started going up for pre-order as early as November 6th. While not your traditional start time, pre-orders can be your best bet here.
As for the digital eShop offerings, this kicked off on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Which was nearly two weeks after Microsoft’s sale and a few days after Sony’s PSN promos went live.
When will the Nintendo Black Friday ad be released?
Well, there is no traditional Nintendo Black Friday ad. But on November 2nd last year, the Nintendo announced its usual Black Friday special Edition hardware along with a limited edition version of Breath of the Wild Explorer’s Edition.
Nintendo Free Shipping
There is obviously no shipping fees associated with Nintendo’s digital eShop deals. All of the best Switch, 3DS and physical game offers will appear at the major national chains and Amazon with those associated shipping fees. You can browse through all of our Black Friday Guides on how to get free shipping and more at all the biggest retailers.
Will there be Nintendo Doorbusters?
Nope, no doorbusters for Nintendo. But its products may very well appear in doorbuster offerings at Best Buy, Target, Walmart, GameStop and many more.
What will be on sale at Nintendo Black Friday?
As we mentioned above, most of the deals Nintendo will specifically offer will be on its eShop in the form of (mostly) discounted digital Switch games. Last year’s offerings were quite impressive too including titles like Shovel Knight, Legend of Zelda classics, LEGO Star Wars and games and more. Considering how the company has ramped up digital promos throughout 2018, we expect the eShop sale to be extremely notable.
As for physical games, we are expecting the lowest deals of the year on all the best first party games and more. Almost all of them have already seen mid-year price drops at Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart, so we are expecting most retailers to get extremely competitive come the end of next month.
Now much like we are expecting from Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo could very well introduce an official price drop on its hardware. That will in turn trickle down to just about all major retailers. While it would be as shocking as it would be impressive for Nintendo to actually put an official price drop on Switch consoles, don’t get your hopes up. However, we are seriously hoping for some Switch bundle deals at the major retailers anyway and will certainly have our eye on the Super Smash Bro’s Ultimate bundle.
Special Nintendo Black Friday Hardware
It is tradition for Nintendo to launch some kind of special hardware release for Black Friday. In 2016 we got the New Nintendo 3DS Super Mario Edition and last year saw the release of The Legend of Zelda Link green 2DS at $79. However, we also got the aforementioned Breath of the Wild Explorer’s Edition. There’s no telling what this year will hold, but don’t be surprised to see a special edition New 3DS/2DS XL and some kind of limited Nintendo Switch bundle.
This might be Nintendo Black Friday, but don’t expect any of the special releases to go on sale. Having said that, we can imagine some retailers throwing in gift cards to sweeten the deal come Cyber Monday 2018.
Black Friday at 9to5Toys
Black Friday 2018 is set to be a big one! Stay locked to our Guide for all the most up-to-date information and deals. Our Twitter feed and the brand new free 9to5Toys app are certainly great ways to make sure you don’t miss the biggest deals of the year.
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