Daily Deals: Get Three Free Months of Xbox Game Pass When You Buy the Backbone Controller
There's a lot to check out for Saturday's daily deals. First, you can score three free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate when you buy a Backbone controller for Android over at Best Buy. Plus, PlayStation's Days of Play sale is live now, featuring a ton of great savings on PS4 and PS5 games. And, you can already lock in your preorder for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. These deals and more below.
The Backbone controller is already a great option for cloud gaming on your smartphone, but today that deal is even better. For $99.99, you can get both the Backbone gaming controller for Android devices and three free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is a $44.99 value. Game Pass seems to be going on sale less and less these days, so you have to scoop up these deals when you can. And fortunately, these two products go great together, as Game Pass gets you access to Xbox's cloud gaming beta, where you can play tons of Xbox Game Pass games directly from your phone.
PlayStation's Days of Play sale is officially on, and it includes a ton of deals on pretty much every first party PS5 game Sony has ever released. We're talking deals on God of War Ragnarok, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut, and a lot more. Below, you can find the best deals at Best Buy, Amazon, and GameStop on both PS4 and PS5 games.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is here, and it's taking comic book movie fans by storm. The sequel to the incredibly-popular Into the Spider-Verse one-ups the original in terms of animation, and it's an absolute visual treat. You'll probably want to own this one for yourself so you can pause on every beautiful frame, and you can preorder the 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and Digital combo pack today at Best Buy.
Nintendo quietly announced a couple of brand new Joy-Con colors this week, so you collectors will have to get on it. You can embrace the light, summery vibes with the new pastel line of Joy-Con, which includes pairs of Pastel Purple and Pastel green, and another set of Pastel Pink and Pastel Yellow.
If you're like me, you might be getting sad that you're nearing the end of your addventure in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I've already put 80 hours into the new Zelda game, and am getting ready to go take on the final boss. You might be wondering what to play next to fill that Zelda hole in your life, and luckily, there's another huge world waiting to be explored on Nintendo Switch. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 launched last year, and it's one of the biggest, best games on Switch, with a memorable story, a great party of characters, and absolutely huge environments to explore. It's obviously a very different game from Zelda, but it's still worth checking out.
Speaking of Zelda, you can grab a deal on one of the coolest Zelda books ever made: Breath of the Wild - Creating a Champion. This book walks through the art and design of Breath of the Wild, giving cool insight to the precursor to Tears of the Kingdom. Plus, the Collector's Edition comes with a Spirit Orb and a photo of Link, Zelda, and all the champions.
This Hot Wheels set is over four feet long and has awesome water play with the Octo Car Wash. It also comes with the Color Reveal car that changes when it gets dropped into this set's water tank. You can also fill the head of the Octopus with water to spray the car as it drives by!
Verizon is currently offering a four pack of Apple AirTags keyfinders for only $80. You're essentially paying only $20 per keyfinder. The Apple Airtag is a small coin shaped device that you can put in your wallet or attach to your phones, keys, remote, or anything small enough to be easily misplaced. It works as a little WiFi keyfinder that helps you locate your lost objects by pinging the exact location to your iPhone. In my personal experience, it works more reliably than the Tile keyfinder. This is a very convenient gadget for anyone who already has an iPhone and tends to lose his or her small essentials around the house.
The LEGO Icons The Lord of The Rings: Rivendell set, IMO one of the best sets released in recent history, is now available on Amazon (it was previously available exclusively from the LEGO Shop). This is great for those of you who have Amazon credit saved up, or if you have an Amazon Prime card and get 5% cashback, if you want faster shipping (it arrives as soon as tomorrow), or if you simply trust Amazon. This is a 6,167-piece recreation of the valley of Rivendell, which includes the Council of Elrond, Frodo's bedroom, Elrond's study, and a whopping 15 total mini-figures. At only 8 cents per brick, the MSRP is surprisingly reasonable for an officially licensed and themed kit.
Right now, there's a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU that's priced below MSRP. Amazon is offering the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 Gaming VERTO EPIC-X RGB GPU (could they make that name any longer?) for only $1107.99, which is about $90 lower than the price of the stock RTX 4090 at launch. This is the "OC" model that has a very modest 45MHz boost overclock compared to the reference card (2550MHz vs 2505MHz). You can read our GeForce RTX 4080 review for the full breakdown, but the RTX 4080 is the second most powerful card on the market. Compared to previous generation cards, it's about 50% more powerful than an RTX 3080 Ti. It also supports DLSS 3.0 (DLSS 2.0 + frame generation), something the RTX 30 series lacks, and that increases the performance gap for games that support it.
The fact that you can get a fully featured Apple Watch for only $149 is very impressive, especially coming from Apple. Although it was released back in 2020, the 1st gen Apple Watch SE is still a very relevant watch. The 2nd gen Apple Watch SE might have a newer S8 processor, but it's technically only one generation newer than the S5 processor found in the original Watch SE (the S8, S7, and S6 have the same CPU). Aside from that and crash detection, it has pretty much every sensor and feature you'd find on the 2nd gen.
At this price, it is a far better value to stick with the Apple Watch Series 7 over the Series 8. Really the only new features of the Series 8 are a built-in temperature sensor (primarily geared towards women's health) as well as the ability to detect when you've been subjected to a serious car crash. The S8 processor in the Apple Watch Serie
Today Amazon has the 2021 Apple iPad 10.2" Wi-Fi 64GB tablet for only $269.99. This is the least expensive iPad you can buy right now (brand new) and it's the same price we saw on Black Friday. Despite its low price tag, this is a capable and fully featured tablet. The Apple A13 Bionic chip offers very good CPU and GPU performance and the large 10.2-inch Retina display is bright and crisp. It's a great option for school, work, or simply relaxing with your favorite movie, book, or streaming service.
The 2nd gen Apple AirPods Pro truly wireless noise cancelling earbuds is back down to its lowest price again. Verizon currently has it for $199.99, a price drop of $50. The Apple AirPods Pro is one of the best sounding "truly wireless" earbuds you'll find, especially at this price point. "Truly wireless" earbuds have no wires whatsoever, even to each other. In addition to the excellent sound quality, the AirPods Pro is the only AirPods earbuds with active noise cancelling technology.
HDMI 2.1 for 4K @ 120Hz
The new 2023 TCL QM8 TV boasts a combination of a QLED and Mini-LED panel with full array LED backlighting, local dimming, and wide color gamut. It's also one of the brightest TVs on the market. Mini LED panels allow for even more precising local dimming because the controller zones are smaller and more numerous. Whereas a normal LCD TV with local dimming might have as many as 100 zones, the TCL QM8 boasts 2,300 zones. The TCL QM8 also features a native 120Hz panel and two HDMI 2.1 inputs. That means it can pass true 4K @ 120Hz when connected to PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
The Epson 5050UB is, in my opinion, the best projector you'll find for under $3K. In fact, it's close to the best projector you'll find under $4K. The 5050UB was released way back in 2019, but up until now no 4K projector in its price range has been able to match its incredible black levels and contrast ratio. In a properly light-controlled room, it's indistinguishable from a premium TV. The 2-way shifted 4K resolution is also really good... not quite native 4K but a big step up in sharpness compared to 1080p. It's also flexible in terms of setup thanks to its generous horizontal and vertical motorized lens shift. It's rarely discounted (in fact early last year it was hard to even find one in stock) so snap this one up quick.
Wow we don't see a Vizio P-series TV on sale very often. Walmart has the 65" Vizio PQ9 for only $698 (MSRP is $1499). This is an excellent TV to pair with current generation consoles. The PQ9 is one of Vizio's higher end TVs with a QLED panel, full-array LED backlighting with local area dimming, and a native 120Hz refresh rate with HDMI 2.1 inputs for 4K @ 120Hz gaming on the PS5 or Xbox Series X consoles. It's also a very bright TV, peaking at 1200 nits.
As part of the Best Buy Memorial Day Sale, you can get the 2021 55" Sony A90J 4K OLED TV for only $999.99. The Sony A90J TV is a higher end OLED model from Sony that's superior to the newer 2022 A80K OLED. The picture quality is as good as the ubiquitous LG C2 (for $200 less at the current price). The A90J is marketed as a gaming TV and is host to several welcome gaming-centric features. It has a true 120Hz panel and two HDMI 2.1 ports for running 4K at 120Hz on a PS5, Xbox Series X, or RTX 30 series equipped PC.
The Adata Premium SSD boasts transfer speeds of up to 6,100MB/s, which is more than fast enough to surpass the PS5's recommended minimum speed threshold of 5,500MB/s. Yes there are faster SSDs out there, but if your intention is to put this in your PS5, then that extra speed is worthless because you're bottlenecked by the stock PS5 SSD. Better to save that money and put it to better use. It also includes a thin aluminum heatspreader... too thin to be appropriately called a heatsink, but still enough for the PS5 console.
The new Echo Buds are out on June 7. If you preorder it, you'll only pay $39.99 (it will go up to $49.99 once it's out). These inexpensive true wireless earbuds feature 12mm drivers, dual micrphones, and a voice detection accelerometer. Battery life is up to 5 hours of continuous music playback, but it does including a charging case that increases your total playtime to 20 hours. It also features multipoint Bluetooth pairing so you can connect up to two different devices and switch between them easily. Since this is an Amazon product, it's designed to work seamlessly with Alexa and Audible.
Amazon has the SanDisk Ultra 1TB Micro SDXC card for only $89.99, making it the lowest price currently for a Micro SDXC card of that size. This card is 100% compatible for the Nintendo Switch console. If you've started compiling a collection of digital games, you probably already know just how limited the Switch's base storage capacity. The Switch and Switch OLED have 32GB and 64GB of internal storage respectively. Some of that is reserved for the OS. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom takes up over 18GB of storage all by itself. Other must-have titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Sword or Shield tap out at 13.5GB each. There's only one expansion slot in the Switch console so you want to make sure you get the biggest card you can afford.
Woot is offering the 2022 LG Evo C2 65" OLED TV for only $1394.99. That's cheaper than the best price we sawduring Black Friday. The LG C2 is one of the best TVs on the market, especially for current gen console gaming. It has four HDMI 2.1 ports and a native 120Hz panel that supports true 4K @ 120Hz passthrough when paired with a PS5, Xbox Series X, or RTX 30 series equipped PC. There's also variable refresh rate (VRR), which is this TV's version of adaptive sync technology, as well as auto low latency mode (ALLM), where the TV automatically switches to a lower latency when it detects gameplay. The LG C2 also supports HGiG, which is automatically calibrated tone mapping specific to your TV model.
It's back! Amazon has the 1TB Seagate Storage Expansion Card for the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles to $149.99, a pretty massive $70 price drop from its $220 MSRP. There's only 1TB of storage in the Xbox Series X and 512GB in the Xbox Series S console, and some of it is used for the OS. Unlike the PS5, you can't just install any third party SSD, even the ones that are fast enough. You'll specifically need this Seagate storage expansion card, which is essentially a 1TB NVNE SSD wrapped in a proprietary Xbox-compatible shell. Unlike the more complicated PS5 SSD installation, where you have to open up the PS5 in order to access the SSD slot, the Seagate expansion card simply plugs right into its own dedicated port on the back of the Xbox. It delivers the same speed as the internal SSD and thus you won't sacrifice performance or experience longer load times that you would have experienced with a regular USB drive.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Complete Official Guide: The Collector's Edition normally retails for $44.99 for the hardcover version, but today it's marked down to $26.99, a savings of 40%. That makes it even cheaper than the paperback version! This gude will help you attain the ultimate goal of 100% completion, thanks to almost 500 pages of content that includes curated walthrough of the entire game, annotated maps of all points of interest, every puzzle, riddle, and mystery solved, and more. The hardcover edition features a gorgeous cover that's so much better looking that the stock imagery on the paperback.
Tears of the Kingdom is out now and everyone has it for $69.99 except for SuperShop. SuperShop has it for $59.99 when you apply our exclusive coupon code "IGNZLDA". SuperShop used to be called Daily Steals. They are a legitimate site; we've ordered physical games from them ourselves in the past and they've always arrived new and sealed. Check out our IGN The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review if you need more convincing.
Amazon Best Buy GameStop HDMI 2.1 for 4K @ 120Hz IGNZLDA