Game Console Launch Prices Adjusted for Inflation
$400 and $500 may seem like a lot for a new PS4 or Xbox One with the economy the way it is (is the economy still bad? I can’t tell, I feel like people have been saying this for years now. I also have an economics degree), but historically, there have been far higher console prices at launch.
Due to the magic of inflation, systems that seem cheap now from decades past were really quite pricey indeed. In this handy guide from Dorkly, we see that the original PS3 was a whopping $567 at launch, with the Sega Saturn at $595. But even those pale in comparison to the Atari 2600 ($796), the Intellevision ($935) and the ridiculous Neo Geo at $1,125. Congrats to the Gamecube for winning the “cheap as shit” award, with most Nintendo consoles being at the bottom end of the price spectrum.
I guess I could sell both of my PS2s and get a PS4…
I think the reason for being nitpicky about prices is because games have become more mainstream, with them being from phones and tablets to having consoles do more than play games there are more choices than before.
This is all wrong. I received a snes when I was a child and there’s no way my parents could have paid that
Also important to note that many of those higher priced bygone consoles bombed. Also, NeoGeo AES boards (games) were sometimes more expensive than competing console systems ($199 – $360 per game). They were the same as the MVS arcade boards except with a different enclosure and pin configuration.