The SNES in 1995 was $199. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $450 in 2025. The PS1 in 1995 was $299. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $650 in 2025. A new SNES game in 1995 cost as much as $85 for Triple-A titles. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $180 in 2025.
A Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025 costs $450. A Nintendo Switch 2, if it launched in 1995, would cost $210. Mario Kart World in 2025 costs $80. Mario Kart World, if it launched in 1995, would cost $40. For comparison, in 1995, I went to Toy ‘R Us to buy a brand new copy of Killer Instinct for thr SNES for $87. If anything, games are currently cheaper. LOL.
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Most salaries don’t keep up with the inflation you’re describing.
Because my parents paid for my SNES…
Because games have been 60 dollars for a very very long time far longer than they should
For the actual console, people have always complained. Remember how much the OG PS3 was? 950 bucks in today’s money. Wild
Well, the economy in general sucks right now. Yeah, when adjusted for inflation, it makes sense, but also wages haven’t been keeping up with inflation.
Because my paycheck isn’t tied to inflation and your regular consumer has to buy the product. The console price isn’t nearly as bad as the price of the games. Think about how much food you can buy with 80$ or how many tanks of gas.
The Switch 2 is PS4 level tech being sold for $450. The PS5 slim costs $400.
It’s just a bad value compared to other similar products currently available.
Also note that in Japan, you can buy a region locked Switch 2 for about $340, but the unlocked one is about $470.
To be fair to Nintendo, part of the price is likely due to Trump’s tariffs. They didn’t want to announce a price assuming no tariffs, then have to immediately raise the price a lot. This price probably included a large buffer to absorb tariff costs.
People will always complain about price and they don’t think in the way you describe the price is reasonable. People will gripe but it doesn’t appear that the price is going to hurt sales.
Because they are entitled.
Because inflation has gone up like crazy for decades but wages are almost the same.
Had the internet been as widespread as it is now in 1995 people would have been on there complaining about the SNES.
People complained about it back then to. Saw interviews in a SNES youtube doc recently with several interviews of families saying their NES was good enough and the SNES pricing was just greedy by Nintendo.
80 bucks for PS4 graphics.
With a NES (or SNES) that I had as a kid, you bought a game and that was that. There was no subscription fee, the only way to get new content in the game was to unlock what was already on the cartridge (unless you had a game genie, also a one time price), and you owned it forever. T
That’s what pisses me off with my kids’ stupid games. They’re just neverending money pits. You don’t unlock the special characters by playing the game and earning them, you just pay for it. And I don’t like that.
90$ for a single game is crazy tho
Wait for those 10% tariffs on Japanese goods…. probably going to be over $500 on shelves, unless they took that into consideration before the announcement
Step one of failing as a business: Tell the customers they are wrong.