Where (and when) to find cheap PlayStation 5 games

Look out for the next PlayStation Store sale

Sony's Playstation Store sells digital copies of games, which you download onto your console. It's not always the cheapest way to buy games (buying a disc drive and physical games is often cheaper), but it does run regular sales. There's nothing worse than paying £70 for a game which goes on sale for £30 the next day, so we've all the info you need on when you can expect Playstation Store sales.

As a baseline, Playstation Store has weekly sales that refresh every Wednesday. These sales are relatively small, but still a good time to find a bargain. You can also expect one-off sales focusing on a particular publisher or game franchise, as well as the big seasonal sales, which occur at more or less the same time each year.  

Here are the dates of the regular Playstation Store sales over the past few years. Mark these down in your calendar, because they give a clear indicator of when the next sale will be.

Use a (good) price tracker 

We’ve tested several price trackers for Playstation games, and the results have been underwhelming. There isn’t a single price-tracking site that encompasses prices for both disc and digital versions of the games, and the usual suspects of UK price-tracking – Price Spy, Price Runner, Idealo – bring up results that are limited and even inaccurate at times.

The best games price tracker we've found that features both physical and digital games is Deku Deals, which is very good at staying up to date, and lets you set price alerts, as well as telling you when a game has matched or beaten its lowest ever price. However, it only includes prices from PlayStation Store, Amazon, GAME, and ShopTo.

Deku Deals lets you look at games in order of 'deepest discounts' (perfect if you've a few quid to spare), and 'hottest deals', which focuses on big-name games at steep discounts. You can track a game's price and get alerts for when it hits thresholds you set. It also has a chart showing the price history, so you have an idea of when to expect the next sale, and what you can expect to pay.

The chart above shows the price history and all-time lows for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection. Although at the time, the game had a decent 41% discount on Amazon (bringing it down to £29.27), it shows that in the summer it had dropped to £25 on Playstation Store, so it's probably worth waiting as the price is likely to drop to that again – if not lower.

Buy games second-hand

Physical games are still hanging in there, and so is the second-hand market. This tip requires a PS5 disc drive - if you don't have one it could be worth buying one to make the most of these savings.

There are several places in the UK to buy second-hand games:

• eBay has a Money Back Guarantee, which means you can buy games with more security than Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace. See our eBay buying guide for how to nab the best deals.

• CeX is the biggest chain for buying and trading in second-hand games (as well as hardware, Blu-rays, and other electronics). It offers decent prices, has reasonable returns policies, and you can sell games back to them, recouping some of the cost.

• Independent game shops are worth supporting, and you may have one near you without even knowing it. Search online for your nearest independent game store, and see if you can grab yourself a bargain.

• Facebook Marketplace lets you search for specific games. You can also join Facebook groups dedicated to trading second-hand games (such as UK Video Games Market and Video Games For Sale UK). Make sure you stay safe when buying and selling in person.

Rent games instead of buying them 

If you’re someone who completes a game then leaves it to gather dust, you could save money by renting or borrowing instead. The halcyon days of renting games from Blockbuster or your local independent games shop may be over, but the age-old practice of game rental is hanging in there.

Boomerang Rentals is the go-to site for renting physical console games in the UK. The cheapest PS5 package is £11.99/mth, which lets you borrow one game at a time (and an unlimited amount per month). At the time of writing, they have many of the latest games, as well as a large back-catalogue of older ones.

Renting could work out much cheaper than buying a game. Instead of splashing out £60 to £70 for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, you could rent it and probably complete the 15 to 20-hour game in a month for just £12.

It’s £17 to rent two games at a time, so if you make the most of it you could boost your savings further.

Borrow games from your buddies

Another practice that's inexplicably gone out of fashion is game-borrowing or game-swapping with friends (the trusted ones who you know won't scratch up your discs and use the case as a coaster).

You can share physical PS4 and PS5 games just like you would've back in the day. It's more 'digitised' than it used to be, in the sense that the disc acts as a 'key' to install and play the game, but effectively it's the same thing: you can lend and borrow physical games without restrictions.

You could agree to swap games instead of just one-way lending, or to spice things up you could come to an agreement where, for example, you play a game they want you to play, and they play a game you want them to play.

Dip into Playstation Plus (and dip out again)

Playstation Plus is Sony’s subscription service that gives you access to varying sizes of game library depending on which tier you sign up for – a Netflix for Playstation games, if you will. 

Many PS5 owners may already have the ‘Essential’ tier, as you need it to play online multiplayer games. The Essential tier gives you a rotation of two to four games to play each month, as well as the same exclusive discounts on games that you get across on the other tiers.

But if you enjoy trying new games, it's worth considering upgrading to the ‘Extra’ tier for £5/month more, as this gives you access to a catalogue of hundreds of PS4 and PS5 games.

Next up is the Premium tier, which is definitely more specialised. As well as the games catalogue you get with Extra, You'll also get access to a large selection of older games, as well as cloud gaming (where you can play games by streaming them from online servers instead of installing them locally on your PS5).

Whether Premium is worth it for you depends on your penchant for older games and the hit-and-miss phenomenon of cloud gaming, which requires a strong internet connection to run properly.

Here's what you get with each Playstation Plus tier:

The most MoneySaving way to approach Playstation Plus is to dip into it to play the games you want, then cancel (better still, turn off auto-renew as soon as you subscribe).

Even Sony’s big open-world adventures can be completed in a month or two, so paying £11 or £22 to play through a game on Playstation Plus Extra like God of War Ragnarok or Ghost of Tsushima (which currently cost £70 each on Playstation Store) is a solid deal, especially when you can play hundreds of other games during that time as well. 

For intermittent gamers, subscribing to Playstation Plus for individual months and turning off auto-renew could save you money, because you may go weeks or months without using it.

Take this approach with the Extra tier, for example, and you may find you only end up paying for six months of Playstation Plus (£65.94), staggered throughout the year, instead of paying £99.99 for a whole year.

For physical games, try HotUKDeals

HotUKDeals (HUKD) has a whole section dedicated to games, and you can narrow that down to PS5 games. It’s not technically a price tracker, instead users post a deal, then others upvote or downvote it based on how good it is – the higher the ‘heat’, the better the deal. The best part is that it covers both physical copies sold at UK retailers and digital copies on the Playstation Store.

Once the heat hits a few hundred degrees, you can be pretty sure that’s an excellent price for the game in question (though you can also search for that game in the HUKD search bar to see previous user-posted deals and how the current deal compares). 

HUKD also lets you set alerts, so when creating an alert, type ‘[game name] PS5’, then set the temperature threshold at which you want to be alerted (100° is a good balance between a popular deal and one that hasn’t been on the site too long, so isn’t likely to expire by the time you get round to it). 

Buying from unauthorised key resellers is risky

Digital game keys allow you to buy a game from any retailer, which can then be redeemed through the Playstation Store. In 2019, Sony stopped distributing digital keys to official third-party sellers (such as Amazon, Currys and GAME). Digital keys do still exist however, as part of special promotions, or publisher agreements with distributors in certain parts of the world – where the games might be cheaper.

This means that you can still get third-party keys for digital PS5 games on sites like Loaded.com (formerly CDKeys), Eneba, G2A, K4G, and Kinguin. These aren't authorised sellers as they don't obtain codes straight from the games' publishers or suppliers.

While it's not illegal to buy from them, they do carry certain risks, mainly because most of these sites sell keys posted by individual users. You could end up buying a key procured by a seller through illicit means (such as a stolen credit card). If the card gets flagged as stolen, that game key can be traced back to it, and Sony could permanently deactivate your game without warning.

Be aware that some of these sites (G2A, Kinguin, K4G) also sell accounts to play games on. This means, instead of a key for the game, you're given the login details to an account that contains the game. Sharing accounts and account details breaks Playstation Network's Terms of Service.

If you dabble in other platforms and want to know how to grab the best gaming bargains for those, then head over to our respective guides for finding cheap Nintendo Switch 2, PC, and Xbox games.