What NOT to Buy on Black Friday 2026

Every Black Friday guide tells you what to buy. The more useful list is shorter and harder to write, because it means telling you not to spend money. Here it is.

1. Games you will not play until spring

This is the biggest one, and it is worse than usual in 2026. Grand Theft Auto VI launched November 19 with a developer playthrough cited at roughly 80 hours. If you bought it, your winter is spoken for.

Buying four discounted games during an eighty-hour playthrough is buying a shelf. The games will be cheaper in the spring sales, when you might actually play them. The one exception is a game with a genuine reason to play it now — a friend group playing it, or something time-limited.

2. Gaming furniture

Racing-seat gaming chairs are the most heavily promoted and least valuable gaming purchase of the week. The shape is styling rather than ergonomics, and the adjustability that actually determines comfort is what these chairs skip. A secondhand commercial office chair will outlast and out-comfort almost any of them. Full reasoning in the chairs and desks guide.

3. Anything where the headline is the percentage

List prices on gaming peripherals are frequently fictional. A product that has never sold at its stated list price is not 60% off; it is being sold at its normal price with a sticker on it. Check price history before any purchase in this week, and treat a large percentage as a reason for suspicion rather than excitement.

4. Extended warranties and protection plans

Aggressively upsold at checkout, and poor value on most gaming hardware. Manufacturer warranties already cover the failure modes that actually happen in the first year, and many payment methods add coverage automatically. The exception is a handheld device that leaves the house regularly, where accidental damage cover can genuinely pay for itself.

5. Storage you do not need — and storage you buy too late

Two opposite mistakes. Buying a large drive when uninstalling three abandoned games would have solved it is waste. Leaving storage until you actually run out, in February, at February prices, is also waste. Free your existing space first, then buy in November if you still need it — the storage guide.

6. Hardware upgrades justified by one game

Specifically: do not buy a PS5 Pro because Grand Theft Auto VI is listed as PS5 Pro Enhanced. Neither Sony nor Rockstar has said what that delivers, and the 26-minute gameplay reveal was captured on a base PS5. Buy a console upgrade because your whole library justifies it, or not at all — the hardware guide.

7. Peripherals for a genre you do not play

Racing wheels, flight sticks, arcade sticks and capture cards all discount well and all sit unused in enormous numbers. Each is genuinely worth it for the person who plays that specific way and genuinely worthless otherwise. Before buying, name the three games you will use it with — wheels, arcade sticks, capture cards.

The summary