Games retail braced for £70m Black Friday bonanza

This Friday could be the biggest sales day for games outside of a console launch.

Over 70m is expected to be spent on games, consoles and accessories tomorrow (Friday, November 27th), based on MCV estimates. More retailers are involved this year than ever before, with the likes of GAME and Amazon heavily promoting offers.

Last year, Black Friday generated 60m in 24 hours at UK boxed games retail, making it the sixth-biggest sales day in UK history (GfK Chart-Track figures). It was the third-biggest day ever for hardware sales, behind the launch of PS4 and Xbox One.

Black Friday has become the leading sales day of the year for gaming,” said Xbox UK marketing boss Harvey Eagle.

GAME’s Martyn Gibbs and Mark Gifford expect Black Friday to be a boost to High Street stores, rather than online retail. There are customers that want a shop to go to on Black Friday,” said Gibbs.

Gifford added: Customers remember what happened in 2014. Will Black Friday be bigger this year? Of course. People are holding back their purchases until then.

But last year some sites did not perform well. And the UK’s entire distribution network started to fail.”

However, publishers will be keen to reduce the hit they took on margins. The average selling price of a PS4 or Xbox One dropped by 39 last year, while game prices fell by 8.50 on average.