I worked at Best Buy in customer service for a few years. I’m genuinely something like a game system would be available open box. Generally when something like that gets returned, it automatically gets sent back from where it came

Before they sell anything open box, it 100% gets tested before it’s even made available for open box. If there are any missing accessories (manuals, remotes/controllers, cables) they tell you prior to purchase and the price would get adjusted accordingly. It’s definitely safe to purchase and you get the normal return policy.

You’d be surprised why people return things. A fair amount of their open box TV’s are because they got the TV, opened it, and realized they wanted a bigger one for a particular room or realized the TV they got was too big and had to downsize. This very well could have been someone who got both the new XBOX and PS5, tried both, and decided to stick with the XBOX

Also with open box items (especially TVs) is where you can actually haggle a little bit with the manager (NOT just a sales associate) to get an even better deal