Gearing up for gamers in gift-giving season can break your brain, especially if you don’t know much about it, and can get expensive fast — all the coolest gear costs. Yeah, there are a lot of expensive choices among our picks, but we’ve tried to weave in some at a variety of prices.
We’ve got the perennial favorites on here — the Sony PS5, Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S, and Nintendo Switch OLED — but it’s likely that your recipient may already have one of these already. What’s not on here, at least not yet, are the new handheld consoles that run Windows, like the Asus ROG Ally and upcoming Lenovo Legion Go. They’re expensive and in my opinion, not quite mass-market ready yet.
Going a little further afield, Meta’s Quest 2 is still the VR headset to beat, even though the Quest 3 is shipping soon; it’s still good but cheaper, and that can make a big difference when you’re shelling out for a lot of presents. But we also haven’t finished reviewing the Quest 3, and so that opinion may change after we do. The update to Sony’s veteran PlayStation VR headset, the PSVR 2 is fab as well, but costs as much as the PS5 it attaches to.
These are nothing without accessories like gaming headsets, keyboards and mice, and those are cheaper and more gift-friendly, but can still get pretty pricey. I’m still plowing through a seeming infinite number of options, but am trying to provide recommendations at all price levels; I’ll be adding more choices between now and the last possible minute.
The smaller, cheaper Series S version of the Xbox plays all the same games, but outputs them at 1440p resolution, which lies somewhere between traditional HD and 4K. More importantly, it’s great for downloading and playing the huge catalog of Xbox Game Pass games, or for free-to-play online games like Fortnite.
There’s a newer model in black with twice the storage for about $50 more — the Xbox Series S 1TB — but it’s not necessary to opt for it unless you want to give the black or you know they keep having to delete games because storage is tight; if you want to give the white model, you can spring for an inexpensive plug-in drive to go with the white model.
Read our Xbox Series S and Series S 1TB reviews.
Read our Microsoft Xbox Series X|S review.
Console SSDs
For the heavy console gamer
Though they’re not quite at stocking stuffer prices, solid-state drives for the Xbox Series S, Series X and PS5 won’t take a chunk out of your wallet the way a lot of these gifts will — they start as low as $70 for 512GB. You do need to know which console you’re getting it for; if you don’t know and don’t want to ask, you might want to pass. Xbox add-on storage plugs into the back of the consoles, while a PS5 M.2 NVMe SSD replaces the existing one and requires opening up the console, and you want to get one equipped with a heatsink.
Don’t confuse these with the external hard drives for the consoles, since they likely have more attractive prices. You can’t run games off of those.
This fourth iteration of Nintendo’s Switch hybrid handheld has the biggest, best built-in display (the OLED screen of its name), plus a redesigned kickstand and TV dock. For anyone looking to give a first Switch or add a second unit for household multiplayer, this is the default model to consider.
If you’re on a tighter budget or shopping for a kid, you may want to check out the stripped-down Switch Lite. It probably won’t earn the squee you want, but just tell them it’s a placeholder for the Switch 2 that’s not expected before next year’s holiday shopping season (and hope they forget by then).
Read our Nintendo Switch OLED review.
The Xbox Series X is a powerful 4K gaming machine that works best with a similarly advanced 4K TV or monitor. The platform offers exclusives like Halo and Forza, as well as for games from Microsoft-owned Bethesda, including the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, and the recently released favorite, Starfield.
The Xbox’s biggest advantage is the excellent Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which includes many of the biggest new games, for $15 per month, and also includes PC and cloud gaming.
Read our Xbox Series X review.
For exclusive games like God of War: Ragnarök, The Last of Us Part 1 and Horizon: Forbidden West, the PS5 is the way to go (although some of these games eventually make it to PCs much later on).
Comparably powerful to the Xbox Series X, the PS5’s big advantage is in its modernized, redesigned controller, which offers better haptic feedback. A new PS Plus subscription service now offers a big Netflix-like catalog of monthly games, although mostly older ones. For anyone interested in VR, the PSVR 2 is a great, albeit expensive add-on.
Read our PS5 review.
Gaming service subscription
Play anywhere
One of the nice things about a subscription is that you can get gift codes for them at reasonable prices, and if the recipient already subscribes to one, they can still use the code to pay for more time.
For Xbox and PC gamers, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is, well, the ultimate gift, providing a large library of games, the ability to stream a lot of them to play on phones, low-power laptops, Chromebooks and TVs, many installable to a PC to play locally. One month is $17.
PlayStation Plus Premium isn’t quite as expansive as Microsoft’s Xbox offering, but for fans of the Sony console it offers a library of games, cloud streaming of some older generation games and more. One month is only $18, and three months is $50.
And for gamers who already have a large collection of PC games, Nvidia’s GeForce Now lets them stream a large and growing number of of them to any device that’s not a PC, such as Chromebooks, Macs and phones. There are two subscription tiers for GeForce Now, Priority and Ultimate; you don’t have to choose which, since that’s selected when the code is redeemed. For instance, the $20 code can be redeemed for two months of Priority or one month of Ultimate.
The Xbox controller has become the unofficial industry standard. It connects via Bluetooth, so it works on not only Xbox consoles, but also your PC or Mac, iPhone, Android phone or iPad, and even the Apple TV.
Since nearly every PC game, and many iOS games, are already mapped to work with this game controller, so it’s as close to pick-up-and-play as a gaming accessory can get.
Game controllers that snap onto your phone can be a pain — even if they attach easily, they make using your phone even briefly in portrait mode difficult — but they’re the slickest, most natural feeling way to use a controller with your phone. Backbone’s One is one of the top models, with a lot of extra software features that make it more than just a convenience.
It comes in models for Android and USB-C iPhones and Lightning-connector iPhones, in both Xbox and PlayStation-standard layouts. Before buying, though, you should know what phone your recipient uses, because these they tend to be size- and model-specific (because connectors fall in different places).
Read our Backbone One PlayStation and Xbox reviews.
For a budget-friendly price, this remains one of the most comfortable gaming headsets under $100 you’ll ever clamp over your ears. Among the updates from the previous version, the Cloud Stinger 2 now has an expanded frequency response on both ends, an updated headband with rotating earcups, a bendier boom for the mic and a better on-ear volume dial.
Read our HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 review.
The Steam Deck is made by Valve, the company behind the hugely successful Steam online game store, and comes closer than anything we’ve seen to nailing the openness, flexibility and scale of PC gaming a devoted set of WASD gamers have yearned for.
But before opting to give the device, make sure you know your recipient. It’s a handheld AMD-powered PC running Linux (with an overlay called Steam OS), and it plays many, but not all, of the PC games on the Steam online store. As long as they’re prepared to do some tweaking and experimenting with settings, and feel comfortable with general PC game troubleshooting (versus the plug-and-play ease of living room consoles), the Steam Deck is a fantastic gaming device.
Read our Valve Steam Deck review.
The Quest 3 is better than the Quest 2, but it’s also $200 more and the Quest 2 is still a great choice. It’s totally self-contained, needs no cables or external tracking cameras, and plays a pretty diverse set of games, from shooters to puzzle games to theme park rides.
And it’s not just for gaming; it can be used for fitness training, virtual theatergoing and even VR meetings.
Read our Quest 3 review.
Read our Oculus Quest 2 review.
The K100 Air is expensive for a keyboard, but it’s very sleek, with responsive, ultralow-profile switches that are great for working as well as gaming. Plus, it connects to three Bluetooth devices in addition to USB and 2.4GHz wireless.
Gamers can be picky about the switches and layout of their keyboards, so you may want to feel out your recipient before going for it. Or keep the receipt — they’ll definitely be able to get what they want for the price of this.
Read our Corsair K100 Air review.
For anyone with a pile of old Game Boy games, the Analogue Pocket is a Game Boy revival dream come true. The Pocket plays Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges, and other retro handheld games, like the Sega Game Gear, with separately sold adapters. A sharp color screen and a battery with USB-C recharging mean games play and look fantastic. A separately sold dock can play games on a TV screen, too.
Read our Analogue Pocket review.
