With the holiday season in full effect, you can expect a fresh stream of Christmas noobs entering your multiplayer lobbies. If you’re on an Xbox or PC and looking to keep the pressure on during ruthless initiation rites, the Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Gaming Controller can help maximize your effectiveness. It’s usually a pricey spend at $179.99, but you can get the full kit with its extra back buttons, analog stick toppers, D-pads, and wireless charging dock for just $124 ($56 off) at Amazon and Walmart right now, which is a new record low price.
For comparison’s sake, the Elite Series 2 Core includes none of those extras, save for the tool that lets you adjust the analog stick’s tension. The Core is appropriately cheaper as a result and starts around $94.99 ($45 off) at Best Buy, Target, and Amazon right now. While you can buy the components separately for $59.99, the two combined turn out to be more expensive than buying the full Elite Series 2 package. That said, it’s a viable way to get the full experience with the Core’s exclusive red, blue, and white color options.
The Elite Series 2 — usable on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows — offers the most customizability of any first-party pro-style controller and is still one of the most configurable options from any brand. In addition to hot-swappable D-pads and four removable back buttons, you can swap the analog stick tops and adjust their tension. The triggers support three different stop levels. You’ll also get extensive software-based button remapping through Xbox and Windows, but you can’t make changes on the controller itself. And the controller doesn’t use removable batteries like the official standard controllers, meaning you can’t swap in a fresh set if their capacity shrinks over time. But Microsoft says it’ll last up to 40 hours before you need to recharge, and you have convenient charging options between its USB-C cable and the included dock.
Read our Xbox Elite Series 2 review.
A few more deals
- If the price of the Xbox Elite Series 2 is more than you want to pay for a fresh gamepad, the standard Xbox Series X/S Wireless Controller is also on sale at Best Buy and Target in white for $34.99 ($25 off), which is an all-time low price. It has no customization options outside of the remappable buttons that you can set up in Xbox and Windows, but it still offers Microsoft’s beloved ergonomics and the advantage of user-replaceable batteries — whether you go for a pair of AAs or an endless sea of rechargeable options.
- If you’re partial to Roku’s incredibly easy user experience, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K can be a nice alternative to the Apple TV 4K or the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K — and the $29.99 sale price ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target is a good value. Compared to the older Streaming Stick Plus, the 4K model offers a bit more speed for zipping around apps and now supports Dolby Vision to go along with HDR10 Plus. It doesn’t have Wi-Fi 6 or Dolby Atmos like the pricier Roku Ultra, but it still supports basic surround sound codecs. It also comes with a great voice remote that has a headphone jack and shortcuts to popular streaming apps. Read our review.
- Astro Bot for PlayStation 5 recently won game of the year at The Video Game Awards, so we understand any sudden thirst you may have to play it. Thankfully, the physical copy is still discounted to its record low of $49.97 (about $10 off) at Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop right now. We thought the platforming puzzle game had system-selling, game-of-the-year-worthy appeal well before the votes were tallied. That’s because of its charming new mascot and supporting cast, imaginative gameplay and aesthetic, and an increasingly rare and intangible sense of magic and joy that got so many of us hooked on gaming in the hobby’s earliest years. Read our review.
