Not willing to wait for that new game to come out and you want it day one or midnight of launch day? Pre-ordering can mean the difference between standing in line for hours or just sitting on the couch—especially in the case of digital pre-loads or release-day shipping. From Amiibos to the next Battlefield or Call of Duty, pre-orders are big business and sometimes it’s difficult to determine where best to pre-order from.

Looking at the current line up, people will already be ordering games such as The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Batman: Arkham Knight, Lego Dimensions, Mad Max, and Halo 5: Guardians from retailers and online stores.

See below for a list of where and how to pre-order games for PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Wii, and Wii-U. For many ordering from a website will be the go-to option and PC users have a wide variety available (from Amazon to Steam), others will want to go into brick-and-mortar stores for pickup, and gamers with consoles may only need to open up their on-menu store and order directly from the TV screen.

Depending on the store or website you choose to buy from a pre-order may require you to pay for the product up front or you will not be charged until release day.

Amazon.com

Possibly amid the best go-to for pre-orders is the retail marketing giant Amazon.com, Inc. Not only do publishers work with Amazon to allow pre-orders via the website, but many also provide a way for extremely early morning delivery (day of release) and digital pre-loading so that the game is ready to go on release day (service available for PC and Mac.) Of course, gamers can pre-order for any platform from Amazon including PC, Mac, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Wii-U.

Amazon also has a service called “Pre-Order Price Guarantee” when this is displayed on an item customers will be charged the lowest price listed on Amazon.com for that product on release date. Therefore no bait-and-switch with the price going up.

Another benefit of buying pre-orders through Amazon is the giant number of payment methods available and customers are not charged until the release date of the item. Cancelling pre-orders before the release date is therefore simple and no refund process is necessary.

Steam

For PC users, Valve Corporation’s digital distribution service Steam allows players to get pre-orders literally on the hour of release, which means no standing in line and makes a pre-order a very real get-it-now convenience. The downside of digital delivery, of course, is that there is no physical disk or product to hold in your hands—but that’s the trade-off.

Orders can be made with a variety of payment methods including credit/debit cards, PayPal, WebMoney, IDeal, PaySafeCard, Moneybookers, etc. as well as from money pre-loaded into Steam with Steam Wallet.

Steam is one of those platforms that charges upon order (even for pre-orders) meaning that even if a pre-order won’t be released for months the cost is entirely up front. However, if you did pre-order a game and decide that you don’t want it, however, never fear Steam added the ability to manually cancel pre-orders in January of last year.

GameStop

When it comes to brick and mortar stores and pre-ordering videogames GameStop has long sought to corner the market. The store already caters directly to gamers and works hard to stock any upcoming games. Pre-ordering from GameStop also enables customers to have the pre-order shipped or allow them to be picked up in store—the latter allows customers to forgo shipping fees and potentially get the pre-order midnight day of release.

GameStop is a good place to pre-order games for any platform including PC, Mac, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Wii-U.

Pre-orders from GameStop are not charged until shipment or pickup at store (so customers will want to have the credit card in hand); however, credit cards used will be pre-authorized for the amount up to 10 days in advance of the release.

There are GameStop brick and mortar stores all over the United States, in most major cities; for the rest of the world there is GameStop International, which covers Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand.

Best Buy and Walmart

Not interested in the options above? There’s still more websites and brick and mortar stores around the United States that can do pre-orders. Retail outlets such as Best Buy and Walmart also allow pre-orders via the store and their respective websites.

Just like the above, both Best Buy and Walmart allow for in-store pickup of pre-ordered games.

Best Buy has a different system than many others that allows people to make a deposit, from $5 to the total amount of the pre-order; the remainder is payable upon pickup of the pre-ordered item. Best Buy also supports digital downloads via the website for pre-ordered games.

Walmart allows pre-orders to be made on the website that can be shipped to a nearby Walmart store, Neighborhood Market or select FedEx Office location for pickup.

Pre-ordering on consoles

Modern console platforms enable pre-ordering themselves from the publishers of games especially with the Internet-connected revolution. This means that people who have a platform such as Xbox One can enjoy release-day availability of pre-orders via digitally pre-loading the game during the days before release so it’s ready to go when the launch hour passes.

Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Pre-ordering a game using the Xbox One can be done via the Xbox Store. Customers will be charged for the pre-order game immediately; but still have the option of cancelling the order before the release date. This capability is available directly from the Xbox One console menu and can also be triggered using the website.

Pre-ordering a game from the Xbox Store also means that the game will have a digital version of the game installed before the release date so that it is immediately available on the system the hour the launch occurs in that region.

It is also possible to pre-order games from the Microsoft Store, including digital downloads linked to an Xbox console. In order to cancel a pre-order, customers must contact Microsoft support.

PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4

PlayStation consoles also have access to the PlayStation Store via the console by pressing the ‘X’ button. Searching the store from the console menu, games can be purchased and pre-ordered. The PlayStation store covers pre-orders for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4

The PlayStation is also capable of pre-loading pre-ordered game content but gamers will have to make sure the automatic pre-loading is active. Go to [Settings] > [System] > [Automatic Downloads and Uploads] and make sure the option to automatically download is enabled. Only consoles with system software 1.70 will be able to use this feature. All games released after April 30, 2014 have had pre-load capability and are ready to play on release day.

To cancel a pre-order from the PlayStation Store you must contact PlayStation Customer Services via chat or phone.

Nintendo Wii, Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS and 2DS

The Nintendo eShop is an online store that provides video games delivered directly to all Internet-connected Nintendo platforms including Wii-U, 3DS and 2DS. For Wii-U players the Nintendo eShop is available on-screen and pre-orders can also be made from there.

There are several ways to get pre-ordered games for Nintendo, the eShop and Nintendo Store are two. Games that can be pre-ordered are noted and will be delivered from the eShop digitally on release date similar to the way other consoles work.

The Nintendo website only supports games that have “Buy Digital” or “Pre-Order,” all others must be bought through a retailer (many listed above.)

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