Ahead of Black Friday, The Xbox Series S “Holiday” Console is now available for $240 at Amazon. With the gift-giving season around the corner, the Xbox Series S will likely be a popular pick this year, especially at this limited-time price (it’s $250 at most retailers). We wouldn’t be surprised to see the console sell out in the coming weeks, so if you want to put the Xbox Series S under the tree, it’s a good idea to buy it as soon as possible.

$240 (was $300) at Amazon

The only difference between this holiday-themed Xbox Series S and the one that’s available all the time is the packaging. You’re still getting the console, a wireless controller, two AA batteries for said controller, plus an HDMI cable and the standard power cord–everything you need to set up and play.

There are no pack-in games or promotional Game Pass or Xbox Live subscriptions included, so you either need to pay for those separately or link your existing Xbox account to access your digital game library and online services.

For shoppers who don’t know the difference between Microsoft’s latest consoles: the Xbox Series S is a smaller, digital-only model of the Xbox Series X. The Series S can play all the same games as the Series X and supports many of the same next-gen features like Quick Resume, Raytracing, 120FPS gameplay, and Smart Delivery. The main differences are that the Xbox Series S doesn’t have a disc drive and can only play digital copies of games downloaded from the Microsoft Store app, and it only plays games in 1440p QHD rather than native 4K–though the device can upscale to 4K if you play and a UHD TV. The Series S also has a smaller 512GB internal SSD for storage compared to the Series X’s 1TB SSD, but you can purchase expandable storage. Check out GameSpot’s full Xbox Series S review and Xbox Series S versus Xbox Series X breakdown for more information.

This holiday-themed Xbox Series S bundle is just one of many gaming deals available right now, so be sure to check GameSpot’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday coverage for all the best sales and discounts, including our roundup of the best Black Friday Xbox deals.

Do you feel like your Overwatch 2 competitive ranking isn’t quite as it should be? Are you being matched against players far above, or below, your skill? Do you really and truly believe, somewhere in the back of your mind, that Overwatch 2 is jerking you around? When things don’t go our way, it’s easy to think that we’re being hosed by Elo shenanigans or broken SBMM. But for some players in Overwatch 2, well, it turns out that the conspiracy was real.

The Overwatch 2 patch notes (opens in new tab) released yesterday, November 17, reveal the strange truth: “Resolved an issue where some players could be stuck in Bronze 5 even after several rank updates.”

Overwatch 2 competitive rankings are divided into seven medals—Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Grandmaster—which are further broken down in numerical divisions, from 5 to 1. Win games and your rank goes up; lose them, and your rank goes down. That part of it is pretty straightforward, although you can dive into our explanation of how Overwatch 2 ranks work in competitive (opens in new tab) if you’d like a more detailed breakdown.

In that ranking system, Bronze 5 is the absolute bottom of the barrel. I mean no disrespect to anyone—I’m a terrible online shooter player myself—but Bronze 5 is a rank that the vast majority of players will leave behind quickly. Look at it this way: Even if you exclude the Master and Grandmaster ranks, the median Overwatch 2 ranking is Gold 3. That’s your cold, hard, middle of the road, and the numbers back it up: In 2018, former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan revealed that 32% of Overwatch players ranked Gold (opens in new tab), bracketed by 21% Silver and 25% Platinum. Only 8% languished in Bronze, a smaller number than the much higher Diamond rank, which accounted for 10% of players.

From a distance, being stuck at the bottom of the bottom is kind of funny. But it’s also undoubtedly frustrating for the players trapped in that position. For one thing, they’re probably pulling their hair out trying to figure out why the hell they can’t get out of that stupid sub-basement rank. More importantly, Overwatch 2 players on Reddit confirmed that the bug wasn’t just visual, but did in fact impact MMR ratings, which throws SBMM for a loop by pitting legitimately low-ranked players against those who belong in much higher ranks—with predictable results.

NHL 23 was released in October 2022, but all PlayStation and Xbox editions are discounted at Best Buy right now for Black Friday.

NHL 23 PS5 and Xbox Series X|S editions are $40, a $30 reduction from the original $70 prices. NHL 23 PS4 and Xbox One editions are $28, a $32 reduction from the original $60 prices. These deals are still in Best Buy early access, so make sure you’re logged in to your Best Buy account in order to see the discounted prices.

NHL 23 is an ice hockey sim game, and 2023’s cover stars are Anaheim Ducks’ Trevor Zegras and Team Canada’s Sarah Nurse. Gameplay changes include “last-chance” moves, where when a character stumbles, they can execute surprise actions. For more information, you can check out everything we know about NHL 23.

Black Friday’s prices are the lowest NHL 23 PS5 and Xbox Series X|S physical editions have gone on sale for. Surprisingly, back in September, NHL 23 PS4 and Xbox One editions sold for around $30–the price we’re seeing now during Black Friday–at GameStop.

There are plenty of other great Black Friday sales going on. You can check out our other deals coverage below:

Fryske Academy researcher Peter-Alexander Kerkhof, whose name you may recognize from his playful and informative critique of medieval videogame pigs (opens in new tab), has largely been enjoying Pentiment, Obsidian’s medieval adventure game-RPG hybrid. 

However, his trained eye did notice one issue amidst the game’s rigorous commitment to its early modern setting: the use of lorem ipsum placeholder text (opens in new tab) instead of real Latin in Pentiment’s intro cutscene.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is another PlayStation title discounted for Black Friday. It’s been discounted regularly in 2022 with the PS5 physical edition going on sale at around $40 a couple times earlier this year. This Black Friday deal is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen it at so far.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5 physical edition is $30 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

For those who don’t want a physical edition, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is also $30 in the PlayStation store.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart released in 2021 for PS5 exclusively, and is the 16th game in the long-running Ratchet & Clank series. Rivet is the alternate dimension counterpart to Ratchet, and the game follows the duo’s space adventures. For more information, you can check out our Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review.

Lots of other PlayStation games are on sale, like Gotham Knights, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, and Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales Ultimate Edition.

There’s also a great sale on PS5 DualSense controllers of all colors. For more discounts, check out our roundup of best PlayStation Black Friday deals.