Guess what? Boxing Day Was Always Okay Too

Boxing Day is just around the corner but unlike Black Friday, there hasn’t been as much grumbling about its “potential crappiness”. Is it lowered expectations? Or perhaps people are putting away their rose tinted glasses after realizing, like Black Friday, they’ve always been okay.

I did some data mining, pulled out some numbers and made some charts. So let’s look at some of the Boxing Day game prices that graced us over the last half decade or so.

The Annual Franchises

Surprise? There’s a very high chance that you’re going to find Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Call of Duty: Black Ops III for $39.99 on Boxing Day. It might not be available across all retailers but some national chain should have it for that price or at the very least, $44.99.

If you’re wondering, the $29.99 sale price for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was from an extremely limited door crasher at HMV (5 copies per format per store). We haven’t seen anything like that stunt since 2009. (Remember HMV used to sell video games? Remember HMV?)

Also note that there are steeper discounts compared to Black Friday. (Perhaps I’ll get a little chart happy and come up with grouped stacked bar graph comparisons in future articles.)

Other Releases

Boxing Day always outstripped Black Friday when it came down to discounting older releases. There were numerous repeats from Black Friday but some titles receive slightly deeper discounts. One thing for certain: there was always more selection during Boxing Day.

Takeaways

These are the key takeaways compared to Black Fridays and other Boxing Days:

1. You should not be paying full price for Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed titles; they often receive even deeper discounts on Boxing Day.
2. More Q4 releases will see $39.99 or lower sale prices.
3. You will see some Q3 releases drop to $29.99 price range
4. Expect some first half releases to drop to $19.99
5. Year old titles will also occupy the $19.99 price range
6. There will be repeat sales from Black Friday but there will also be more selection as well

If patterns hold true, Boxing Day will end up been perfectly fine in 2015. I know there’s concern that the recent dip in the Canadian dollar will affect Boxing Day discounts but I’m not worried. Canadian retailers are quick to raise prices but not that quick.