Month: June 2018

As mid-July approaches, you can bet Amazon Prime Day 2018 will be coming soon. Although the online retailer has yet to announce when Prime Day will be this year, it always tends to happen sometime in the middle of July. In fact, a banner that appeared on Amazon UK may have accidentally let slip Prime Day’s date this year: July 17, with deals beginning the previous day.

Seeing as this pseudo-holiday is centered around a single online retailer, it isn’t quite as big as Black Friday. But you can expect to see plenty of discounts on games, tech, movies, toys, and anything else you might want to buy from Amazon. Other retailers may also offer discounts that day to cash in on the commerce craze. Here’s everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2018.

What is Prime Day?

Prime Day is a massive sale Amazon puts on each year in July for Prime members. It all began in 2015, when Amazon had a sale to celebrate its 20th birthday. In the years since, Prime Day has grown into a shopping extravaganza in its own right, with deep discounts on all kinds of items.

When is Prime Day?

Last year’s Prime Day lasted for 30 hours that spanned part of July 10 and all of July 11. If the Amazon UK leak is accurate, this year’s sale will last 36 hours, with prices dropping midday July 16 and running through July 17.

For Prime Members Only

The catch is that you have to be an Amazon Prime member to take advantage of the deals. The company ruffled feathers earlier this year when it upped the annual price of a Prime membership from $99 to $119. (You can also get a one-month membership for $13). Having to buy a subscription is a bummer, but there are ways around dropping cash just to take part in Prime Day. If you’ve never been a Prime member before, you can get a free 30-day trial just by signing up. Students get an even better deal: their Prime membership begins with a free six-month trial.

Even if you’re a lapsed Prime member and you can’t get the free trial, signing up for a one-month membership may be worthwhile, depending on what Prime Day deals you want to take advantage of. There’s also a good chance Amazon will offer a discount on Prime subscriptions in the run-up to Prime Day, so your best bet is to wait and see.

What kind of deals can we expect?

Amazon always drops prices on tons of items, with big discounts in particular on its own hardware: Echos, Kindles, Fire sticks, and tablets. Additionally, you can expect big savings on video games, consoles, gaming accessories, 4K TVs, other electronics, apparel, outdoor gear, baby products, and nearly anything else you can buy at the online retailer.

No deal announcements have been made yet, but we’ll have lots of Prime Day deals coverage on all things gaming and media here at GameSpot when the event rolls around. Make sure to check back closer to the the big day.

With July almost upon us, Sony has unveiled the list of games that PlayStation Plus members will be able to download for free during the upcoming month. As always, there’s a total of six games spread across PS4, PS3, and Vita, with the highlights–as usual–coming on Sony’s newest platform.

PS4’s lineup this month consists of two games. On the heels of Detroit: Become Human‘s release, we get another game from developer Quantic Dream: Heavy Rain. The QTE-heavy game features a branching story where you investigate a serial killer. It was originally released on PS3 before making its way to PS4 in 2016.

The other PS4 freebie is Absolver. While perhaps not as well known, it is perhaps the month’s most exciting offering. It’s a third-person action/fighting game with a distinct control scheme where you can customize your moves. It’s relatively new, having only been released last August.

On PS3, PS Plus members get the platformer Rayman 3 HD and strategy game Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess. If you have a save file from Deception IV: Blood Ties, you’ll be able to carry over certain unlocks to Nightmare Princess. For those with a Vita, action game Space Overlords is free–and it offers Cross-Buy with PS4 and PS3, getting you a total of three games in July on those platforms. The final Vita freebie is acclaimed adventure game Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma.

It’s not too late to claim June’s PS Plus freebies if you haven’t already done so. These include XCOM 2 and Trials Fusion on PS4. Additionally, this coming weekend will offer a chance for PS Plus members to play Destiny 2 for free, while yet another game–Call of Duty: Black Ops III–is free to download through July 11. Grab that, and you’ll be able to continue playing it for as long as you remain a Plus member, as with all standard PS Plus Instant Game Collection titles. July’s new lineup of freebies will be available starting on Tuesday, July 3.

July 2018 PS Plus Games

PS4

• Absolver
• Heavy Rain

PS3

• Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess
• Rayman 3 HD

Vita

• Space Overlords
• Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma