boxing day

It’s time look back at the last 10 years of Boxing Days and see how they stack up with one another.

The Annual Franchises

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare marked the highest Boxing Day sale price in franchise history with its $59.99 price tag. It was an extremely very popular instalment of the long running franchise, so it’s not that surprising to see Activision keep the price relatively high.

Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint continued its Black Friday 2019 pricing of $29.99. Priced to move and yet it will continue to hover around that price for the majority of 2020.

Other Releases

Seeing The Outer Worlds for $50 two months after release was expected. Everything else was a repeat of Black Friday 2018.

Boxing Day 2020? Black Friday 2020 Never Ended

There used to be a brief break between Black Friday and Boxing Day sales, but several titles including Sony first party ones kept their Black Friday sale price right through Boxing Day; the likes of their Greatest Hits, The Last of Us Part II, and Ghost of Tsushima continued to be on sale.

With that said, there are some (and likely will be) Boxing Day exclusive deals. Boxing Day isn’t a complete repeat of Black Friday, but that Venn diagram has never been closer to being one.

Boxing Day isn’t what it once was. It’s now a repeat of Black Friday with a handful of new deals.

2018 featured some notable deep discounts on select titles but they were by and large repeats from Black Friday 2018.

The Annual Franchises

Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII continued the 2017 trend of offering $30 off the MSRP of Activision’s long running first person shooter franchise. It’s early, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare looks to wind up with an average sale price of $59.99 for Boxing Day 2019.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey plunged all the way down to $29.99 thanks to a $50 discount which is the lowest price ever for an Assassin’s Creed title during Boxing Day.

Other Releases

The floor for most of 2018’s titles was around $30 for Boxing Day 2018. Battlefield V was $29.96 ($50 off) which was $10 lower than Battlefield 4’s sale price back in 2013 during the same period.

Other than that standout, other releases fell within expectations.

Boxing Day 2019? More Like Boxing Weeks 2019

The old joke a few years ago was to view Boxing Day like Boxing Week but now it’s more apt to describe this sales event as Boxing Weeks 2019. We’re seeing deals that are guaranteed Boxing Day deals a full two weeks before the actual day.

In other words, you can simply look at the deals page and see what Boxing Day 2019 will be like because it’s pretty much all there already.

Boxing Day isn’t what it once was; you’re going to see a lot of repeats from a month earlier. It’s best to view next Wednesday an encore of Black Friday with a spritz or two of new deals. 

2017’s Boxing Day went pretty much as expected. If you were patient, you were able to nab some of the best games of the year on some steep discounts.

The Annual Franchises

The long streak of finding the most recent Call of Duty title for 50% off ended in 2017 with Call of Duty: WW2 coming in at $50 across all retailers. 

Assassin’s Creed returned in 2017 with Origins. The $39.99 price tag also returned giving the game a 50% discount within 2 month’s time.

Other Releases

Nier: Automata for $30? I’m sure this was a popular pick up last year. It wasn’t surprising to see Destiny 2 and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus receive 50% off discounts. The Destiny franchise have always been historically quick to discount and the same goes with Bethesda published titles. 

What Will Boxing Day 2018 Look Like?

1. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII and/or Assassin Creed: Odyssey chime in with 50% off discounts
2. A repeat Black Friday pricing for Electronic Arts and Bethesda’s lineup of games.

Boxing Day. The once go-to annual sales event is now better known (to me) as Black Friday Encore. Expect repeat sales, expect familiar prices, but also make room for a surprise or two.

Boxing Day 2016 edged out 2015’s if you were in the market for Microsoft first party titles.

The Annual Franchises

Watch_Dogs 2 continued the trend of Q4 Ubisoft titles discounting to $49.99 instead of $39.99 as seen prior to 2015. Call of Duty continued its trend of hovering around the $39.99 price tag by year’s end. Crazy isn’t? Wait just over a month and you can pick up Call of Duty for $40 instead of $80.

Other Releases

Microsoft’s first party titles saw their deepest discounts during Boxing Day of last year. Picking up Gears of War 4 less than 2 months later for just $30 is ridiculously good. And a $10 copy of Rare Replay isn’t too shabby either.

What Will Boxing Day 2017 Look Like?

1. Assassin’s Creed: Origins for $49.99 ($30 off)? I can see that for sure.
2. Call of Duty: WW2 sales are very good which could mean that we won’t see dip down to $39.99 like in previous years.
3. I expect Microsoft to deep discount their first party lineup again. Forza Motorsport 7 for $30? It’s already $39.99 until Christmas.
4. Expect repeat Black Friday pricing for Electronic Arts and Bethesda’s lineup of games.

Unless you were looking for a huge swathe of Q4 2015 releases to go on sale for $39.99 or less, Black Friday 2015 didn’t deviate too much from the norm of “Black Friday being okay”. Will Boxing Day 2015 fare or remain the same? Let’s take a look.

The Annual Franchises

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate didn’t hit the $39.99 sale price on Boxing Day for the first time since I started collecting deals. It was $39.99 before Boxing Day on December 21, 2015 courtesy of Amazon.ca though.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III was $39.99 and offered the deepest Boxing Day discount on a Call of Duty title since 2009.

Other Releases

Q4 2015 releases (outside of Call of Duty: Black Ops III) continued to hold relatively high $49.99 price points but everything went on sale down to expected sale prices.

What Will Boxing Day 2016 Look Like?

I expect 2016’s Boxing Day to look a lot like 2015’s. I’m not a professional market analyst but I’m going to give it a crack with the following “easy” predictions:

1. Obviously there’s no new Assassin’s Creed instalment this year but I can see Watch_Dogs 2 find itself at $39.99 since it’s been sitting at $49.99 so frequently already.
2. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Standard) is ripe for a $39.99 sale price since physical sales are down year over year. We’ve also seen the Legacy Edition go on sale down to $69.99 ($40 off) for a couple of days so it’s not a stretch to see deeper discounts if retailers are sitting on a lot of stock.
3. Speaking of overflowing stock, Square Enix shipped 5 million units of Final Fantasy XV to retailers and if the Japanese publisher miscalculated demand for it, I could see retailers move units for at least $49.99 ($30 off).
4. I don’t expect to see deep discounts The Last Guardian.

I’m not really sticking my neck out there but let’s see if I end up being right or wrong on these.

It’s a shame the console versions of Just Cause 3 are suffering from performance issues. The GiantBomb Quick Look has it looking like a game full of dumb fun they played the PC version. I’m hoping for patches to smooth over the framerate issues but I’m not holding my breath. I guess I’ll have to pick this up after my PC upgrade. 

Want to submit a banner of your own? Check out this page.

Boxing Day/Week is upon us and it looks like it’s in line with previous years. The round-up will be updated with undocumented deals as they’re unearthed.

Boxing Day Sale Start Times

Boxing Day starts online on December 24 for a number of retailers. Here are the known start times listed in chronological order.

December 24

• Walmart’s online sale starts @ 12pm ET / 9am PT
• Microsoft Store’s online sale starts @ 6pm ET / 3pm PT
• BestBuy’s online sale starts @ 7pm ET / 4pm PT

December 25

• The Source’s online sale starts @ 12am ET / 9pm PT

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.