How, when, and where to find cheap Xbox games

Look out for the next Microsoft/Xbox Store sale

Like its rivals at Playstation, Microsoft sticks to a fairly consistent annual and weekly sales schedule on its Xbox Store. You can expect weekly Microsoft Store game sales to start at midnight every Tuesday, and last until the following Tuesday, when they get replaced by a new round of deals and discounts.

Beyond that, throughout the year there are various one-off sales focusing around particular publishers, franchises, genre, or special occasions, as well as seasonal sales that take place at similar times each year.

These seasonal sales are usually the biggest in scale, so if you're waiting for a game to drop in price, then these are the most likely times of year it will do so.

Here are the dates that the major seasonal sales took place over the last few years on Xbox, so you have an idea of when to expect the next one:

Dip into Xbox Game Pass (and out again)

Game Pass is Xbox's subscription package, which lets you play a vast library of games for a monthly fee. The selection is fairly impressive, and it's the only gaming subscription service that regularly features newly released games from day one (albeit only on the 'Ultimate' tier – the other tiers get those same games within a year).

The price of the Ultimate tier recently leapt from £15/mth to £23/mth. There's now a new middle 'Premium' tier at £10.49, which could prove better value, though you do miss out on the new day one releases (which Microsoft has promised to release within a year on the Premium tier). If you want to cut Game Pass costs by potentially over 50%, head over to our Xbox deals page where we usually have some steep discounts for Game Pass.

On Ultimate you also get access to PC Game Pass (which features many of the same games, but also quite a few PC-exclusive ones) as well as cloud gaming, whereby you stream games from Microsoft's servers instead of installing them locally on your Xbox.

While the price hikes mean Game Pass may no longer be the best deal in gaming, you can still potentially play games that would cost £50 to £70 on the day of release for a monthly price of £23.

There are three tiers to Game Pass:

As Microsoft has now absorbed various gaming publishers like a great green blob – including Activision-Blizzard, Bethesda, Obsidian, as well as its own in-house studios – you'll find a lot of popular games new and old here such as Diablo, DOOM, Skyrim, Starfield, and Call of Duty.

Buy second-hand

Physical games are still hanging in there, and so is the second-hand market. 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 

The halcyon days of renting games from Blockbuster or your local independent games shop may be largely over, but the age-old practice of game rental endures in the UK, thanks to Boomerang Rentals. You can rent Xbox (and other console) games going back three generations – Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 – which is great because Xbox Series is backward-compatible with hundreds of Xbox One and 360 games (see here for the full list of backward-compatible games).

If you want Xbox Series X|S games, the cheapest package is £11.99/mth, which lets you borrow one game at a time (and an unlimited amount of games per month). 

So instead of splashing out £60 to £70 for a game like, say, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater or Silent Hill f, you could rent them and probably complete these 15-20-hour games in a month for only £12. 

It’s only £17 to rent two games at a time, so if you make the most of it you could boost your savings even 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 Xbox Series X|S games (as well as Xbox One and Xbox 360) just like you would've back in the day with N64 and Playstation games. 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.

To make the deals more equitable, you and your buddies 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.

Use a (good) price tracker  

We’ve tested several price trackers for finding Xbox games, and the results have been largely 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 both limited and often inaccurate. 

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 Visions of Mana. As you can see, the game hit an all-time low price of £21.77 across the stores tracked by Deku Deals when we checked, so it was a good time to bite (though always do a quick Google Shopping search to see if it may be cheaper at other retailers).

Track prices and set alerts on HotUKDeals

HotUKDeals isn't technically a price tracker, instead users post deals that others upvote or downvote – the higher the ‘heat’, the better the deal. The site has a section dedicated to gaming, and you can even set filters specifically for Xbox One or Xbox Series X games. It has a far wider scope than even the best price tracker, covering both physical copies sold at most UK retailers and digital games on the Microsoft 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 get an idea of how the current deal compares to historical ones).  

HUKD also lets you set alerts (albeit for user-voted ‘heat’ the deal generates rather than exact price thresholds). When creating an alert, call it '[game name] Xbox', 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

Beyond the official Xbox digital key retailers like Amazon, Argos, and Currys, you might see unofficial key seller sites include Eneba, G2A, K4G, and Kinguin popping up.

These aren't authorised sellers, and while it's not illegal to buy from them, they do carry certain risks, largely stemming from the fact that these sites mostly 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 Microsoft could permanently deactivate your game without warning.

Also be aware that some of these sites (G2A, Kinguin, K4G) sell not only keys, but also accounts. When you buy a game via an account, it means you don’t get a key for the game, but instead the login details to an account that contains that game. Sharing accounts breaks the {Xbox terms of service}.

If you dabble in other gaming platforms and want to know how to grab the best bargains for those, then head over to our respective guides for finding cheap Nintendo Switch 2, Playstation 5, and PC games.