What to expect during Amazon Prime Day 2023

You know what Amazon Prime Day is, right? It’s an annual two-day deals event held exclusively for Prime subscribers. the Prime Day 2023 dates are Tuesday, July 11 through Wednesday, July 12. Prime Day is a major event because it’s one of a few chances outside of Black Friday to get huge price cuts. It’s also noteworthy because Amazon’s massive influence causes retailers like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, among many online stores to drop their prices, too.

If you have something (or many things) on your wishlist or gifting list, Prime Day is something you should pay attention to. But what can you expect to see discounted during the big sale? Here’s what you need to know.

First up, subscribe

First-time members of Amazon Prime can get a free 30-day trial to the subscription, lasting through all of Prime Day and beyond. For everyone else, the service costs $14.99 per month, or $139 when you elect to pay annually. In addition to being your golden ticket to access Prime Day deals, you’ll get fast shipping, Prime Video content, and more with a Prime subscription.

Tabletop and board games will be cheaper

If you’ve scouted our best board games recommendations, or frequently follow my colleague Charlie Hall’s tabletop coverage, there’s a chance you might find some of those products selling for less during Prime Day. Getting some discounted board games is a great way to add some summertime activities for family and friends.

It’ll be a great time to get gaming accessories

What do I mean by gaming accessories? Well, everything. You can expect to find discounts on gaming controllers, fast SSDs for PS5 and PC, microSD cards for the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and Asus ROG Ally, and a lot more — basically, the stuff you might want to kit out your gaming setup will be discounted. I also expect the deals to extend to some hot gaming monitors, keyboards, laptops, headsets, and other peripherals. We will, of course, tell you all about them once July 11 arrives.

Load up on video games, movies, and box sets

Prime Day is a great time to be a gamer, or a fan of movies, anime, and other kinds of entertainment. Expect to see some huge discounts on all of the above, giving you even more stuff to throw into your backlog. There may even be some deals on pre-orders.

Prime subscribers can already nab free games and DLC

Amazon has already been gifting subscribers with free games and DLC, with new titles expected to be announced. So far, Arkane Studios’ Prey and Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition are some of the titles you can nab at no cost. Overwatch 2 players can also get 5 tier skips on their battle pass, some Call of Duty: Warzone cosmetics are available, and more.

Other retailers are going to bring the heat

As I mentioned earlier, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Newegg, and a lot of other retailers will be joining Prime Day, in a sense, by launching deal events of their own. In the past few years, retailers have gotten better at matching — sometimes exceeding — Amazon’s own price cuts. As such, it’s certainly worth shopping outside of Amazon if you aren’t seeing the price drops you’re looking for.

Image: Amazon

Some deals are already available

Amazon’s growing batch of early Prime Day 2023 deals are decent, but they aren’t setting the world on fire. That’s intentional; the company is holding its big guns for July 11 and July 12. Still, I encourage you to check them out ahead of Prime Day, as we’re adding new deals to that post.

You can track deals yourself, if you want

Trust me when I say that Polygon is putting the work in to find exactly the deals on products we like and know you’ll like too. When you wake up on July 11 and head to our site, you’ll be greeted with more deals than you’ll know what to do with. However, if you’re someone who only wants to engage minimally with Prime Day, or is picky about the prices they’ll buckle for, we suggest tracking deals yourself. To help you with that, we’ve rounded up tips on how to find the best Prime Day deals.

Looking for more deals? Check out all of Polygon’s favorite Prime Day 2023 deals right here.