Many different promotions were run on all sort of platforms

Dec 28, 2013 20:36 GMT  ·  By

The end of the year has brought not just the traditional winter holidays but also a wide variety of great sales, discounts, price cuts, and many other promotions for all kinds of items, including games.

Across all sorts of platforms, including PC, PS3, or Xbox 360, companies have bent over backwards to make sure that gamers have enough things to spend money on.

On the Xbox 360, Microsoft has brought back its Countdown sale, this time counting down the days until 2014 with various daily and weekly deals for owners of its current-generation home console.

Already quite a few discounts have been offered for both lightweight downloadable arcade games but also for the full-fledged Games on Demand titles that are available via the Xbox Live Marketplace.

On the PlayStation 3, Sony has organized various discounts in North America and Europe, hosting holiday sales but also themed promotions like the 12 Deals of Christmas. Here, many recent games, like Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag or Battlefield 4, have received big discounts, largely to tempt those who still own the current-gen console from Sony.

On the PC, however, the platform's freedom has once again led to a much wider array of promotions. Here, gamers can take advantage of sales from big online retailers like GreenManGaming, GOG, or GamersGate, not to mention dedicated services like EA's Origin or Ubisoft's uPlay.

As always, however, Valve's Steam reigns supreme with its Winter Sale. Here, daily deals, not to mention flash sales and community choices are constantly featured with all sorts of big discounts.

While that would be enough to crown Steam as the best service for bargain hunters, Valve's decision to offer Left 4 Dead 2 completely free secured the title and once again showed that, when it comes to deals, there's no beating the PC platform.