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Gifting Guides

Plain-English answers to the questions that stop a non-gamer buying with confidence — how to gift a digital game, and whether a gift card beats an actual game.

Buying the gift is the easy part. What stops most non-gamers is the how: can you even gift a digital game? Do you need to be “friends” with someone online first? Is a gift card a cop-out or actually the smart move? These short guides answer exactly those questions, in plain English, with no assumed knowledge.

Gifting a digital game works differently on every platform, and that’s where people get stuck. On PC, Steam is now the easiest of the lot — Valve dropped the friends-list rule in July 2026, so you can send a game to a plain email address without even having a Steam account. On Nintendo Switch it’s a cartridge, a download code, or an eShop card. On Xbox there’s a real gift button in the store. On PlayStation there’s no direct gift button at all, so a store card is the route. We spell each one out step by step so you can do it without second-guessing.

Settled on a gift card? Our gaming gift cards buying guide compares the Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Roblox and Steam options side by side — which card suits which person, how much to put on it, the region rule that catches people out, and the one card Amazon doesn’t actually stock. Buying for a Fortnite player specifically? V-Bucks can’t be sent between accounts, so how to gift V-Bucks covers the three routes that do work. Roblox went the other way in 2026 and added real gifting, which how to gift Robux walks through — including the browser-only rule that stops the code working on a console.

Thinking of a subscription instead? Game Pass can be gifted two ways, and how to gift Xbox Game Pass covers both — plus which of Microsoft’s four plans to pick, which codes actually save money against paying monthly, and the conversion rule that turns a 12-month code into three and a half months if the recipient already subscribes to a higher plan.

Still deciding between a card and a game? Our gift card vs an actual game guide gives you a simple way to choose based on how well you know their taste and their library.

Buying for a child? Start with game age ratings explained — what E, E10+, T and M mean, what the small print underneath the letter is telling you, and the “Users Interact” label, which for a lot of modern games matters more than the age rating itself.

Would you rather know the pitfalls than the process? The eight most common gaming gift mistakes lists the specific, preventable ways a well-meant present goes wrong — wrong console, invisible duplicate, no batteries on the morning — each with the two-minute check that avoids it.

When you’re ready to pick the gift itself, head back to gifts for gamers or the games to gift lists — and if you want to know how we choose what goes on them, that’s on how we pick.

New this month, all four from questions people are actually typing: do Switch games work on a Switch 2, do you need a microSD card for the Switch 2, how many controllers you need for Mario Party and do you need Nintendo Switch Online — plus a ranked pick of the best gaming headset for kids.

Newest of all: what a Game-Key Card is — the Nintendo Switch 2 game case with a card inside it that holds no game data at all. What Nintendo says it needs to work, how to recognize one before you get to the till, and the one thing it does that a download code never can.

Added October 2026, all five from live search data: what a Nintendo Switch 2 really costs now Nintendo has moved it to $499.99, the best cheap gaming headset and the compatibility rule that decides whether a wireless one works at all, what you actually need to start streaming (less than you think, which is what makes the gift hard), what an amiibo is and whether one is worth giving, whether Switch games can be shared between two children in one house, and what age Roblox is for — the sibling of the Minecraft page above, written off Roblox’s own account bands and content labels rather than an ESRB rating it does not have.

Added mid-October 2026, six more from live search data: the best gaming controller to give — six pads ranked by the machine they plug into, which is the only question that decides it — and the best gaming headset for a PS5, chosen on the makers’ own compatibility lists rather than the box art. Then four questions nothing here answered: how much Nintendo Switch Online costs (all four of Nintendo’s published prices, and why the Family tier beats two individual ones), whether you need PS Plus to play online — the PlayStation half of the Switch Online question above — what crossplay is and why it still doesn’t let you buy the game for the wrong console, whether a Switch needs wi-fi (no, with one Switch 2 packaging exception that catches people out), what a Joy-Con actually is and whether to buy another pair, and whether a Switch needs a TV — it doesn’t, and one model cannot use one at all.

Newest, and the pair that finally covers the desk: the best gaming mouse to give and the best gaming keyboard to give. Both are sorted by the thing a gift buyer can actually answer rather than by specifications they cannot: the mouse page by hand size and whether they want the cable gone, the keyboard page by how loud it is allowed to be in their house. Honest cons on every pick, and a live price on each.

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