How to save money when you buy video games and consoles

theguardian.com:

Downloading games is far more convenient than buying them on a disc these days but if you play on consoles, buying a physical copy often costs substantially less – especially a few weeks or months after a game comes out.

Use a price comparison website such as Best-Game-Price.co.uk, which lists lots of different retailers, and you will often be able to save £10 or more, even on new full-price games. Ebay regularly has random discount code promotions that can be applied to physical games.

Plus, you have got something to put on your shelf that you can resell later or lend to a friend.

That said, when the PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop or Xbox Store have digital sales, the discounts can be great.

All the digital storefronts have rolling sales most of the time. PlayStation tends to go for a theme or a genre, Xbox will discount a whole franchise or publisher range at once, and Nintendo will randomly have seasonal discounts.

However, the undisputed king of the video game sales is the Steam sale aimed at PC gamers, which happens twice a year – in summer and winter.

For the uninitiated, Steam is a hugely popular online video game platform. Discounts are huge, offering brilliant games for a few quid, and there is usually a “metagame” attached to make it more fun: last time, it hid fake games with names such as Help Get the King to the Toilet among the real ones, complete with artwork, and you got a little reward for finding them.

Digital sales are also great for extending the life of games you already own: you can buy gold editions, season passes or game-of-the-year editions at a huge discount months down the line, and furnish yourself with all the extra content that has been released since.

On digital storefronts, you can often buy a