My new game backlog is so intense at this point, I find it difficult to add to my Switch/PS4 collections until an outlet comes along providing these games at a great discount. When I take stock of my shelves, I’m realizing my backlog mostly consists of anything I’ve purchased in the past two years. The Black Friday sales are typically when I strike the most, and my backlog of games purchased for $20 or less includes games I really want to start, such as Bloodstained and Judgment, and games like Yakuza 0 and Dragon Ball FighterZ that I have been able to crack open but need to finish.
I live in a rural area, so my one and only option to walk into a brick and mortar building and look at video game products is unfortunately Walmart. Walmart wouldn’t be a terrible option on the surface, but, given I live in a small town, my location is hardly given priority on a wide selection of video games, and there are several products that are never carried at that store. Still, it is a location that receives the Nintendo-developed products at the touted $10-off new price in order to compete with Amazon.
Obviously, this makes the location a go-to spot for Black Friday deals, but, there is one other occurrence that happens once or twice a year – the department reset/clearance.
This January was a big one for stores, as it served as a prime opportunity to dump Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 goods as Xbox X and Playstation 5 products roll in. This holiday season was likely the last we’ll see the Nintendo 3DS/2DS product lines featured on retail shelves. And, even though a lot of PS4/Xbox One products are still running strong, stores likely have stocks of games that just didn’t sell hot.
The most recent clearance was an interesting one, setting a number of decent game titles at $5 brand new. Former Call of Duty and EA Sports titles were common games given this price tag in our location, but there were also curiosities such as the recent Aladdin/Lion King collection, some The Sims titles, Just Dance titles and the Battlegrounds battle royale game.
Different locations had different games marked down, and I was disappointed that the $10 Octopath Traveler I had seen online was not available in our three area stores. However, one location offered up the Xenoblade Chronicles for Nintendo Switch at that same price. I also missed out on a $5 Spyro Trilogy Collection for Playstation 4 at one of our locations. If you were able to get to the stores in time, there was something for everyone at a low price point.
The big kicker I experienced inside a store was a group of Xbox 360 games, such as some of the LEGO games and Batman: Arkham Asylum being sold for a whopping 3 cents.
The title I’m left most curious about, though, is the Playstation 2 title Ski and Shoot. This seems to be the sole surviving Playstation 2 game left at our local stores, and each store has a stack of them. Oddly, the pricing is different between the stores. One store tossed it on an endcap display with a tag of $3, but, another had a stack of them locked behind a case at $15 a piece.
This reminds me of a handful of games that held on at the local Walmart well beyond the system’s lifespan. My hometown location had a Quake III for SEGA Dreamcast chilling in a display through most of the 2000s, and, up until recently, it had a copy of Naruto: Clash of the Ninja 2 for Nintendo Gamecube mixed in with the PC games.
In the end, I spent less than $50 to flesh out the family’s games with seven new titles we can play. We’ve expanded our Just Dance collection – which is the only reason we use the Xbox Kinect anymore – and I can cheaply experiment to see if my kids have any interest in The Sims.
It’s unfortunate this year’s clearance didn’t make its way over into the PC accessories like it has in the past for microphones and keyboards, but, when that store is the only game in your town, you have to take what you can get!
GemuBaka 
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