Amazon's Early Black Friday

Amazon is doing black friday, but it’s doing it in classic Amazon form. The online retail giant is starting its “black friday” deals as early as friday, November 20, with deals continuing to pop up until the 27th and beyond. It’s not the only retailer to attempt to extend the black friday concept, but it’s one of the most aggressive out there. It makes sense: Amazon thrives by subverting retail tradition wherever it stands, and this is the company’s attempt to both take advantage and ownership of the black friday idea. 

From a video game perspective, the deals are a lot like what we’ve seen from other retailers: $50 off all Xbox One consoles, $299.99 for the Uncharted Collection PS4 bundle, and discounts on software that we assume are going to continually roll in, like $25 off Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. The company has also promised “hundreds” of PC download deals at up to 70% off: something like the Steam summer sale.

Some of Amazon’s better deals, unsurprisingly, are on Amazon hardware: Amazon Fire for $34.99, $25 off Amazon Fire TV, and $15 off the Amazon fire TV voice stick. There are plenty of other deals on TVs, Toys and more, which you can read in the full press release. I’ll be interested to see how this one develops over the course of next week: in many ways, the stampede out to stores on Thursday evening is anathema to Amazon’s concept of retail, and so I imagine we’ll get some decent-sized surprises on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Anyone looking to buy a PS4 or an Xbox One, however, will get more or less the same deals here that we’ve already seen from plenty of other retailers. The real Amazon touch is that free two-hour shipping in 20 major metros, which could allow you take advantage of those same deals and lie around near-comatose from Thanksgiving dinner. At the same time!