Best Buy Taps IGN for Gaming Portal as Holiday Launches Near

Best Buy has launched a gaming portal built on IGN content, timed to holiday releases including Grand Theft Auto VI and the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The retailer announced the partnership with IGN, one of the largest names in gaming news and reviews, ahead of what it expects to be a major shopping season for games. The new online destination is called Best Buy Gamers. It is currently in beta.

What will the portal contain?

The portal will carry a mix of editorial and commercial material. According to the announcement, it will include:

• reviews from IGN
• articles and trailers
• videos and other exclusive content produced with IGN
• product and event information from Best Buy itself

The structure is straightforward. IGN supplies credibility with players through its reviews and coverage. Best Buy supplies distribution and a direct path from content to purchase. The portal sits at the junction of the two.

How does Best Buy monetize it?

Best Buy Ads, the retailer's advertising arm, will sell media placements inside the gaming initiative's digital experience. This is the key commercial mechanism. Best Buy is not simply publishing content for goodwill; it is building an owned media property (a platform a brand controls and sells advertising on, rather than renting space elsewhere) with IGN as the editorial engine.

The move follows a familiar retail media playbook. Retailers build audience-adjacent content, then sell brands access to that audience. Gaming audiences are valuable and hard to reach through conventional channels, which makes the category attractive for Best Buy Ads.

Why the timing matters

The launch lands ahead of major holiday gaming releases that the source names directly: the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Grand Theft Auto VI. Holiday launches drive hardware, accessory, and software sales. A content portal live in beta now gives Best Buy a window to capture search traffic and buyer intent before those titles arrive.

The partnership also gives Best Buy a reason for gamers to visit its ecosystem outside of a purchase moment. Reviews, trailers, and exclusive content create return visits. Best Buy Ads can then convert that attention into media revenue from game publishers and hardware brands.

The beta label signals the portal is still being tested. How quickly Best Buy scales the initiative, and how much inventory Best Buy Ads actually moves against it, will show whether IGN-backed content can anchor a retail media play in gaming.

By Elena Vasquez