Gaming is my favorite hobby — these are the best Amazon Prime Day gaming deals

Gaming is my favorite hobby, but if I have one big complaint about it, it's that it's just way too expensive. I mean, have you seen the price of the PlayStation 5 Pro? Games are also regularly $70 now. It's wild. That's why I highly recommend taking advantage of sales to stock up on gaming-related items that you maybe wouldn't normally have the budget for. Luckily, Amazon is on the second day of its Prime Big Deal Days sale, and there are a pretty good amount of gaming deals that are live, if I do say so myself.

Below, check out my top picks for the best gaming deals during the sale.

Best console deals

If you're just getting into console gaming, the October Prime Day event is a perfect opportunity to pick up a PlayStation 5 Slim or Xbox Series S (the Series X isn't included in the sale, but I did find it for $50 off at Best Buy). Both consoles are sitting at decent discounts right now — the PS5 Slim at $50 off, and the Series S at $15 off. It's not the best Xbox Series S deal I've ever seen, but even a few bucks shaved off the already budget-friendly console isn't anything to scoff at. The PS5 Slim deal, however, is an all-time low price. It might be better during Black Friday, but if you're not down to wait until November, I think you should probably just snag this deal now. You can't go wrong with either one, but what I usually tell people who are between the two new-gen consoles is to go with the PlayStation 5 if you're more interested in big-budget, exclusive single-player titles, and go with the Xbox if you want access to a lot of different games at once via Game Pass.

Best storage expansion deals

File this under "annoying but necessary purchase." Unfortunately, the new-gen consoles just don't come with enough built-in storage (at least, not for me). If you're downloading a lot of games, you're most likely going to need over 1TB of storage at some point, and neither of the heavy-hitter options allows for that out of the box. So unless you want to be playing the "storage shuffle" forever (that fun chore of having to choose which games to delete so you can make room for new ones), you'll want to add an expansion card into the mix. These are the best two options on the market, and both of them are on sale — so do your future self a favor and snag them while you can save some cash.

Best controller deals

The stock Xbox controller that you get with the Series X or S is actually pretty good as is, but if you want to upgrade, you shouldn't look anywhere other than Xbox's Elite series controllers. The Elite Series 2 Core controller is almost $40 off, and comes with a bunch of cool extras like back paddles, hair trigger locks, and a more premium feel overall. If you're more of a mobile or cloud gamer, check out the Backbone One controller, which can plug directly into your smartphone and works way better than using on-screen controls. I just recently played through Grand Theft Auto: Vice City using my Netflix app with the Backbone One, and it was a fantastic experience.

Best keyboard deal

Razer's keyboards are my absolute favorite, and the Huntsman Mini is at a huge discount for Prime Big Deal Days — just $69.99, $50 off the usual price. I'm a big fan of mini keyboards because it allows me to still have that amazing mechanical keyboard experience even with minimal desk space. The Huntsman feels amazing to type on and features a ton of cool functions that'll help competitive gamers perform much more efficiently, like Snap Tap strafing. I honestly don't use mine for gaming all that often, but it's great even as a daily driver keyboard for work and other basic tasks. So even if you don't see yourself hopping into Overwatch anytime soon, this keyboard is still a good get.

Best headset deals

Listen, I promise I'm not sponsored by Razer or anything. I just really like their stuff, okay? Sue me! Two of my favorite headsets from them are on sale for Prime Day: the BlackShark V2 Pro and the Hammerhead Pro. The BlackShark V2 Pro is by far the most comfortable over-ear gaming headset I've ever used, but it also sounds great and has crystal-clear microphone output (according to my online gaming buddies, at least). If you're more of an earbud person, the Hammerhead Pro buds are also a great option. I'd describe them as AirPods for gaming, basically.

Best bundle deal

This one is hard to pass up. If you don't want to buy a console just yet but are intrigued by cloud gaming, this bundle has everything you need to get started: An Xbox controller, a Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is basically a massive, Netflix-style library of games that you can download and play from at your leisure. At just $79.99, this is a pretty sweet value. I might even grab this deal myself...