Welcome back to another year of the (formerly) most blessed event in Canadian gaming! E3 preorder deals have a long tradition in Canada, and they are back this year!
A History Lesson:
In previous years, Future Shop (rip) and Best Buy during E3 would give a 33% discount of the price of new games provided you ordered 3 or more. This was wonderful because of the relatively hassel free protential for returns or cancellations.
This got even better last year when Amazon jumped into the fray, matching the offer and mistakenly giving many up to 50% off the price of new releases. Sadly, the closure of Future Shop and the rise of Canadian gaming prices has brought us to today.
Last year's thread
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How it works this year:
There are two sales going on at Amazon.ca right now.
THESE ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH EACH OTHER
Amazon has price matched Walmart, listing several preorders for $49.99 ($30 off). A list is below:
Pre Orders
Battlefield 1 - $49.96
Watch Dogs 2 - $49.96
FFXV - $49.96
Ghost Recon Wildlands - $49.96
Gears of War 4 - $49.96
Link to $30 off games
They are also offering 20% off selected preorder games (link to list)
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Basically, you have to sign up for reward zone and order your games. You'll get 25x the reward zone points (400 points = $5), and they are posted to your account 36 days after shipment of your game. These reward certificates can only be used IN-STORE.
Best Buy has also said they will price match any future lower prices and apply the deal to the lower price.
You can see all of their games here:
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Okay, sorry for the delay on this, went drinking with departing co-workers.
Here's the list of eligible and non-eligible Amazon.ca E3 promo games. I haven't done the Best Buy games yet, and honestly I don't think I want to bother unless there's demand for it. So if you want me to also add the BB ones, let me know. Also, if any games are missing from either list, let me know that too. Note that while the $50 games are missing from the eligible list (because technically they don't qualify for 20% off except MXGP 2 for some reason), their current discount is actually BETTER than 20%.
Quick Math Reference:
30% Off:
79.99 = 55.99
74.99 = 52.49
69.99 = 48.99
64.99 = 45.49
59.99 = 41.99
49.99 = 34.99
39.99 = 27.99
20% off:
$79.99 = $63.99
$74.99 = $59.99
$69.99 = $55.99
$64.99 = $51.99
$59.99 = $47.99
$49.99 = $39.99
Pros and Cons for Amazon Best Buy from dancrane212:
dancrane212 said:
Sale is online only.
You are not charged until shipping and you are only charged for the game that is shipped out, not the entire order if other games release at a later date.
You can cancel at any time even if one of the games has already shipped.
Games may or may not be added to each retailer's list as they are announced.
At least for BestBuy I can guarantee returning games does not affect your current order, but I haven’t had to return a E3 ordered game to Amazon yet so I’m not sure how it works there. Canceling part of the order on Amazon will void the discount on the entire order.
Amazon:
Pros
Prices can update
The promotional price is applied to the regular game price and will be updated if that base price for the game ever decreases before releasing. So say you order a game $40 with a 15% discount and said game goes on sale a couple months which lowers the regular price to $35. When your game ships you will be charged $35 minus the 15% promotion. If the Canadian dollar ever gains ground on the US and the prices are updated on Amazon you will get the cheaper price in addition to your discount.
Better website
Orders can be adjusted online at any time even if part of the order has been shipped. You are able to change billing/shipping information all from the web portal without any issue.
Amazon Prime
If you are a prime subscriber (or use the free trial for the week of E3) you can order all your games with the “free” prime shipping option to give yourself a much better experience than the slower default, free, option. Preorders made while a prime member are not changed (reverted to a lower shipping tier) if your subscription ends before the item is shipped.
Cons
Shipping
While I have heard and experienced bad shipping times with both companies non-prime orders have usually been very late shipping to me on the east coast, and are usually much slower than Best Buy.
Harder to return
There are no Amazon retail location so returning unwanted games is more of a process than just dropping by a Best Buy.
Best Buy:
Pros
Retail Locations
With Best Buy having a decent amount of retail locations throughout Canada it makes returning unwanted games very easy. This will not affect your remaining games in the order.
Faster default shipping times compared to Amazon.
If you’ve ever been to the Canadian deals thread here on Gaf you’ve certainly seen, or experienced yourself, the very slow delivery speeds you can encounter when using the free shipping option on Amazon.ca. Best Buy, while not perfect, does seem to have a much better track record of getting you the game sooner than Amazon (default free shipping) with their free shipping option.
Cons
Terrible website.
Once part of your order ships you cannot update any information on said order. If 1 of your 3 games ship and you move or need to change the credit card attached to the order you will need to call up Best Buy support and have them correct it on their end.
Previously didn't make updates to the base price of a game.
Last year Captain Toad was added to the Best Buy during the E3 promotion as a $59.99 game. When the official price was unveiled and updated on the website ($39.99) it did not do so on existing orders from E3 and folk ended up paying a couple dollars more than MSRP ($59.99 - 30% rather than $40). To fix this you had to call up Best Buy’s phone line and hope you got someone who understood and was sympathetic to your cause to fix the situation. Someone at work was on the phone for a good couple of hours trying to get something worked out before he made any progress. Best Buy now says they will adjust the price but it doesn't appear the website is capable of tracking such a change yet. Keep that in mind while ordering.
Some things to keep in mind:
You can cancel your order up until it ships, and you can return anything unopened to the store for a refund. No real risk to preordering anything here!
Best Buy will be adding all the new stuff announced at the conferences, so it doesn't hurt to wait until the end to see what you want.
A reminder about Amazon shipping:
If you pre-order an eligible item as an Amazon Prime member, “Release Date Delivery” is automatically selected. You'll receive your game on time.
If you don’t have Amazon Prime, you’ll have to select “Two-Day Shipping” and pay the additional shipping fee.
If you don't have Amazon Prime and select "FREE shipping", chances are your game won't get to you for Day 1. Please keep this in mind when ordering
See No_Style's guide to Amazon.ca here for more info
http://gamedealscanada.com/2016/06/10/amazon-ca-101/
