Amazon Prime Day is in less than a week. What’s in it for gamers, and how to get ready
Disclaimer: if you use our links to purchase through Amazon, we get a commission of the sale, as part of the Amazon Affiliates program.
Amazon Prime day is coming on July 15th worldwide, that’s Monday. This year it will be a 48h event on Monday and Tuesday, and it’s the best time of the year (with the exception of black friday) to grab some discounted gear.
Basically Prime day 2019 will be a full 48 hours of discounts for a bunch of stuff sold on Amazon. Although every year there’s a clear push in the electronics section for Amazon’s own products (this year’s no difference with discounts already in place for the Fire TV stick, The echo input for $14.99, The FireTV recast, and the echo dot + ring ), we can also expect some deals related to gaming and electronics (PC gear, TVs,…).
There can be a lot of good stuff to be acquired for cheap on Prime Day (and not only on Amazon!), but there’s also a lot of offers advertised as “deals” that are just not worth it, so let’s tread carefully.
Twitch prime
Amazon haven’t announced a lot of gaming specific discounts yet, except for their own platform Twitch. Prime members who also have a Twitch account will be able to get PC games for free, and in-game loot for Apex Legends, GTA, Red Dead online, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, and more.
On July 11,12 and 13, Twitch will be streaming “celebrities competing live” on games such as Apex Legends.
Details here and here.
Other deals of interest
The LG Stylo 4 32GB is currently sold for $160 for prime members. It’s a great offer (that’s basically 50% off) if you’re looking for a mid-tier phone at a cheap price (and runs an actual Android, not Amazon’s FireOS).
Amazon Video are discounting rentals of Marvel movies to $1.99 ahead of prime day.
How to get ready to snatch Prime Day deals for gamers
The main concept of Prime day is that Amazon will have lightning deals that pop up every 10 minutes or so, and last for a few hours or until all stocks are claimed, whichever happens first. Additionally, a lot of other retailers have similar events going on at the same dates, in order to compete.
What’s critical to remember is that every year on Prime day, the good deals sell out within minutes. So if you’re thinking of getting a game for cheap or improving your gaming gear on 7/15, it’s essential that you get ready beforehand. The last thing you want is missing out on a deal because your Amazon account does not have a valid payment method or the right billing address!
So here’s what you need to do to get ready for Amazon prime day:
- Get a Prime free trial if you’re not prime yet. It’s free for 30 days and you can cancel it afterwards. Don’t wait until the day of the event to become a Prime member, you’ll regret it if you miss a deal because of the extra time it takes to set up your account. Amazon Prime day is exclusive for Prime members so you will need this to get the deals.
- Worst case scenario: no good deal shows up and you can cancel the auto renewal of your subscription to have it automatically stop after the 30 days free trial.
- If you can’t get the prime free trial (if you already subscribed in the past, or for other reason), they have a 50% off discount on the subscription for students.
- In your Amazon settings, make sure you have a valid shipping address and payment method. Reload your gift card balance ahead of time if that’s the payment method you plan to use.
- Make a list of the stuff you actually want, ahead of time. This will avoid purchasing a bunch of *** you didn’t actually want.
- Lots of good deals are outside of the realm of gaming by the way. I need a new pair of shoes, I will definitely leverage prime day for that.
- Check the Amazon deals page regularly, and use their “watch deal” feature, which will warn you when an upcoming deal goes live.
- Beware of “not so great” deals. Just because there’s a deal on Amazon Prime day doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one (I can’t emphasize this enough: there are great deals on Prime day but also a lot of ***! Make a list, see point 3 above!!!). My strategy so far: buy the deal anyway, then take a few minutes to compare prices with the competition (again, lots of competitors have similar deals going on). If the deal’s not worth it, I cancel my purchase before it ships.
- I used to recommend to Follow us on Twitter. But the reality is that nowadays I don’t live in a US-compatible timezone* so I’m usually not awake for the good lightning deals in the US. I’ll do my best though, so follow me on twitter anyway 🙂
It’s still a bit early to know what Prime Day 2019 will bring to gamers, and if anything will be good, great, or just “meh”. The only way to get those deals is to be ready for them.
* For those of you in Japan, Amazon Japan are hinting that there will be deals on PS4+Game bundles.
First :^)
A V A R I C E
U
R
O
Z
E
T
T H O T