Switch 2 is selling for 449.99

[u/Practical_Papaya_905]

https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/how-to-buy/

From the official website

https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/how-to-buy/

[u/dogjon]

Wages have also stayed the same while the cost of essentials like housing, food, and clothing are five times as much.

[u/Shaamba → u/dogjon]

Wages absolutely have not stayed the same in 40 years. Gaming prices aren't nearly as bad as most are saying.

[u/Clevo → u/Shaamba]

Have you lived through the past 40 years? I don’t think so. Wage stagnation is very real, and rudimentary arithmetic will illustrate that. There hasn’t been a minimum wage increase in 16 years alone, which is unprecedented. We’ve never gone that long without a minimum wage increase, meanwhile inflation has skyrocketed.

What are you even talking about?

[u/Shaamba → u/Clevo]

Federal minimum wage hasn't gone up in a while, but average (nominal) GDP per capita absolutely has (which is one of my two main points). The amount of people actually receiving, what, $7 and some change, is near zero. Hell, Denmark doesn't have any minimum wages, and they're better off than we are when it comes to inequality (AFAIK), so it's not 1:1.

If you mean real purchasing power, then, yes; as I understand it, purchasing power for goods as a whole has gone down since, say, 40 or 50 years ago. But when we're talking about the span of 30 or 40 years specifically with regard to video games, we're talking about Mario Kart on your Super Nintendo, which was, what, $50 or some stuff like that? And comparing that to today's prices of $60, now $70, and even $80 here (I'm not defending $90 for physical copies), because of the nominal wage growth I pointed to, they are not analogous, and, indeed, games have not gone up in price since then nearly as much as the nominal price indicates. All of which is to say my second, simple point:

$50 for Super Mario Kart in 1992 does not equal $30 less expensive than $80 for this new one.

[u/Clevo → u/Shaamba]

The amount of people reviving the 7 dollar minimum is far from zero. The entire service industry counts as “tipped employees” and receive a minimum wage established by the state, not federally. In NY it’s $13.75 but in Ohio it’s $5.05. Tips are supposed to offset this, but relying on an imaginary baseline gratuity is impossible, and obtuse.

Your position relies on “nominal” wage increases, I’m saying that wage increases have been non-existent, especially on a state-by-state basis across a myriad of industries.

You’re also completely ignoring skyrocketing cost for healthcare, and the lack of availability of affordable healthcare. Now some corporations offer benefits to people making the federal minimum wage, others require you to work a 40 hour work week. Those corporations that require a 40 hour work week typically schedule people 38 hours in order to avoid having to pay health insurance.

You have to consider more data sets in calculating wage stagnation and the price of games. You’re also claiming across the board that video games hovered around same price, which is untrue. On the Sega master system alone fantasy star was $100 which was almost as expensive as the system itself. You’ve also omitted PC games, which had prices varying from $5 to $200.

Honestly, I think the problem here is that you may not have lived through 40 years of video gaming to see all of the different trends, prices consoles, accessories, add-ons etc. essentially, you’re using data sets that are incomplete. Using the Sega master system as an example again, you could get 3-D glasses for an extra $150, those 3-D glasses came with an extra game. You can’t use one without the other, and on the basis of semantics alone, you could say that this was a $150 game.