This story is part of Gift Guideour year-round collection of the best gift ideas.
Game consoles, gaming hardware, and new games and accessories are easy holiday wins. Finding exactly what you want, however, can be more difficult. Yes, on PS5 from Sony is easier to buy than at any time in its two-year life, but you still have to look around a bit. The Xbox Series X and S series are usually easily purchased now as well as OLED Nintendo Switch. If you’re looking for the ultimate gaming gift, any one of these consoles is a surefire hit.
Going a little further, The mission of Meta 2 still the best VR headset even though Meta/Facebook recently raised the price. Newer VR headsets like PSVR 2 (for PS5) aren’t coming until next year, and Meta’s upcoming new VR headset will be a much more expensive pro-level device rather than a casual gaming system.
Hand games is experiencing a renaissance in 2022, with the Nintendo Switch joined by the Analogue Pocket and Panic Playdate – two mini-consoles with a retro feel that will give you classic GameBoy vibes. On the other side of the spectrum, Valve’s Steam Deck (also still hard to find) is a full-featured mini gaming PC.
As a general favorite, the $499 PlayStation 5 is for gamers who want high-profile, Sony-exclusive games like God of War or Horizon: Forbidden West. The $499 Xbox Series X is great for gamers who want an entire ecosystem of Xbox Game Pass games that work across Xbox, PC, and even tablets and phones (via cloud gaming).
The best budget choice for a gaming console is the Xbox Series S, which does almost everything the larger Series X does, but for $299. Another budget idea: For $49, you can get a Microsoft Xbox controller in a variety of colors—it’s a great gift because it works with Xbox, gaming PCs, iPads and iPhones, even Apple TV.
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The Xbox Series X is a powerful 4K gaming machine that works best with a similarly advanced 4K TV. The platform offers exclusives such as Halo and Forza, as well as games from Microsoft-owned Bethesda, including the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games and the upcoming Starfield.
Xbox’s biggest asset is the excellent Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which includes many of the biggest new games for $15/month and also includes PC and cloud gaming.
Read our Xbox Series X review.
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The smaller, cheaper Series S version of the new Xbox plays all the same games, but displays them at 1440 resolution, which sits somewhere between traditional HD and 4K. More importantly, it’s great for downloading and playing the huge catalog of Xbox Game Pass games, or for free online games like Fortnite.
Read our Xbox Series S review.
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The Xbox controller has become an unofficial industry standard. It connects via Bluetooth, so it works not only on Xbox consoles, but also on your PC or Mac, iPhone, Android phone or iPad, and even Apple TV.
Because almost every PC game and many iOS games are already mapped to work with this controller, so it’s as close to grab-and-play as a gaming accessory can be.
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For the budget price of $50, this remains one of the most comfortable sub-$100 gaming headsets you’ll ever put on your ears. Among the updates from the previous version, the Cloud Stinger 2 now has an extended frequency response on both ends, an updated headband with rotating earcups, a more flexible microphone handle, and a better on-ear volume selector.
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This fourth iteration of Nintendo’s Switch hybrid handheld adds a bigger, better built-in display (now an OLED screen), plus a redesigned stand and TV dock. For anyone looking to jump into the Switch or add a second unit for home multiplayer, this is the default model to consider.
But if you’re looking for the next Zelda game, it’s not coming until May 2023.
Read the OLED Nintendo Switch review.
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Taking the openness, flexibility, and scale of PC gaming and putting it into handheld form has long been a holy grail for a dedicated subset of WASD gamers. Steam Deck comes closer than anything I’ve seen to achieving that formula.
Steam Deck is made by Valve, the company behind the hugely successful Steam online gaming store/platform, but you need to know what you’re doing before committing to the device. It’s an AMD-powered laptop that runs Linux (with an overlay called Steam OS), and plays many, but not all, of the PC games in the Steam online store.
If you’re willing to do some tweaking and experimenting with settings and are comfortable with general PC gaming troubleshooting (versus the plug-and-play ease of living room consoles), the Steam Deck is a fantastic gaming rig.
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For anyone with a stack of old Game Boy games, the Analogue Pocket is a Game Boy revival dream come true. The Pocket plays Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges and other retro handheld games such as the Sega Game Gear with separately sold adapters. A clear color screen and USB-C rechargeable battery mean games play and look fantastic. A separately sold docking station can also play games on a TV screen.
Read our analog pocket review.
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The Panic Playdate is small, yellow, has a black and white screen with no backlight and plays its own unique independent games, 24 of which are included in the purchase price. Games are controlled with buttons, a D-pad, and a wacky rotary crank that is used in many games to good effect. Playdate is charming and weird, very experimental feeling and we have no idea what future games will arrive. But it’s meant to be a collector’s item for fans of portable and indie games.
Read our Panic Playdate review.
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The Quest 2 is the easiest VR headset to use, although the starting price has jumped from $299 to $399. It’s completely self-contained, doesn’t need cables or external tracking cameras, and plays quite a diverse range of games, from shooters, puzzle games to theme park rides.
And it’s not just for games; it can be used for fitness training, virtual theater performances and even VR meetings. Parents beware, though: the user must be logged into Facebook, so be careful if you’re giving it to a child.
Read our Oculus Quest 2 review.
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