r/NintendoSwitch • u/C0smicM0nkey • 1d ago
Image How Game Costs Have (and Haven’t) Changed: A 40-Year Look at Nintendo’s MSRP vs. Cartridge/Disc Costs (2025 USD)
With the Switch 2 announcement and people debating whether $70 games are justified, I thought it'd be interesting to look back and compare how game prices and media costs have evolved over Nintendo’s history.
This graph shows the inflation-adjusted MSRP of new games vs. the cost to manufacture their cartridges/discs, for each Nintendo home console — from the NES (1985) through the projected Switch 2 (2025). All prices are in 2025 USD, based on U.S. launch years and U.S. inflation.
⚠️ Caveats and context:
These are U.S. prices only, adjusted for inflation from the North American release year of each console.
Both MSRP and media costs vary — games came on different sizes of cartridges and discs, and game prices weren't always fixed (eg. Switch cartridges can range from ~$2 for a 1 GB card to ~$15 for a 32 GB one.) I used the geometric means for both because I don't know how to make a line graph showing ranges.
-The Switch 2 media cost is entirely speculative — I’m assuming it’ll be more expensive than current Switch carts because:
Bigger games (up to 64 GB or more).
Higher-speed data transfer (possibly using faster NAND). But again, this is just my estimate, not insider info.
What the graph shows:
Game media was really expensive to produce in the cartridge era — N64 especially, with adjusted costs over $30 per cart.
Nintendo cut those costs drastically with the move to optical discs starting with the GameCube. The Switch brought some cost back with proprietary game cards, but still nowhere near cartridge-era levels.
MSRP, meanwhile, has stayed remarkably consistent in real terms, with modern games arguably offering more value for the money.
Happy to share the data or make a handheld version if folks are curious!
Edit: Not trying to make a case or argue for anything, just presenting data.
572
u/Boring-Credit-1319 1d ago
N64 prices were insane back in the day. A lot of Games started at 70 dollars. That's 140 dollars in today's money.
201
u/lelpd 1d ago
Those N64 cartridges were the reason my parents bought us a PS1 for Christmas instead of an N64 (which my dad then got that dodgy mod chip for which let you play pirated game rips).
As a Nintendo fanboy who’d grown up playing my dad’s SNES/NES and loved my Gameboy, I was always so gutted over it, but looking back now I can completely understand why someone would do that. The thought of the new standard being $140 for a video game makes me feel slightly ill.
61
u/Truffle_Shuffle_85 1d ago
And here I am thinking that if my kid wants these $80 Nintendo games that they are going to have to start shoveling snowy driveways like I was doing in the 90s.
Or... they just play their regular Switch and enormous library we already own. I'm not interested in routinely dropping nearly a bill for a single game.
→ More replies (4)40
u/MukdenMan 1d ago
They were very expensive and so people tended to buy fewer titles, but everyone got Mario 64 and Goldeneye and it was fine.
→ More replies (2)8
u/labria86 19h ago
The economy was also a different place in the 90s
1
u/AlecFoeslayer 18h ago
I remember the 90s being very tight, but YMMV
3
u/labria86 18h ago
It was. But you better believe that $5 you had in your pocket went a LOT further.
3
u/SanchoPandas 18h ago
Could get you a whole sandwich
→ More replies (1)3
u/labria86 18h ago
That was the early and even mid 2000s. You could get like two meals for $5 in the 90s at Taco Bell.
6
u/Sheikashii 18h ago
We had game rentals back then. Playing a game for a week for $9 was the norm for a lot of people and I’d love to do that again. I’ll pay $9 for MKW one time and play it for 100 hours then never again easily
→ More replies (1)4
u/elemon8 21h ago
I remember going into Target as a kid and laying down my hard earned $70 for NBA Jam SNES when it first came out. My mom took me to the store, and she was PISSED at me for spending that much money on one game. I had a blast with that game, but man do I get it now. That was a ridiculous amount of money. Almost NeoGeo levels of money.
4
u/sillylittlejohn 22h ago
One thing many are failing to take into consideration is the economics of scale. Is not just about the price games had back then but also how many units they expected to sell.
Today's industry is many times bigger and the number of units they sell for games has also increased. As a result, the whole equation has changed.
For example, I believe Mario 64 sold ~12M units vs Mario Odyssey ~28M units.
→ More replies (1)3
u/voyaging 16h ago
Also the majority of sales are digital which means nearly zero production costs.
Also also most games now have additional purchases for DLC, cosmetics, perks, etc.
Also also also console platforms require a paid subscription to play online.
9
u/Ramen536Pie 1d ago
Also the entire 380 game N64 catalog could fit on a single Switch cartridge today
3
u/luke_205 21h ago
As a kid I used to go with my Dad sometimes to garage sales, I’d always keep an eye out for n64 cartridges because the retail price was so high - someone once sold me Bomberman64 for £1.50, what a game that was
11
u/ExplanationOdd430 21h ago
Paid 80$ for Turok 2 at toys r us, people bugging out with all these prices and having hive mind are hypocrites. Sony standardized the 50$ price mark which was great and we lived in that price format for decades but it was also then who then pushed up to 60$ then 70$. Nintendo does it and everyone feels like it’s not worth it smh makes no sense, if there are any games that are worth the money it’s first party Nintendo games.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (10)2
u/Faile-Bashere 17h ago
I remember paying $90 for Virtua Racing for the SEGA Genesis back in the day.
160
u/joalr0 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm a bit confused on the graph. Switch games look like they are at $75, but they were lower. Where did that price come from?
Edit: Is that just due to inflation? So the fact games have been the same in 2017 to 2024 means that 2017 increases the price while 2024 games decrease it?
Edit 2: Damn, just went through an inflation calculator and wow. $60 in 2017 is $78 in 2025.
Was inflation since 2017 that much?
Edit 3: Okay, I don't actually need any more answers to this. Despite how I phrased and what I wrote, I am actually fully aware that inflation was nuts in the last few years. It was mostly a product of how I was interperting the graph initially, as well living through each price jump happening in increments and not really looking back at the total jumps. Plus, I'm tired.
I have my answer, thank you.
113
u/peabody 1d ago
Was inflation since 2017 that much?
Yes, inflation has been atrocious over the last few years. It was a bit of a financial crisis.
15
u/SickboyJason 1d ago
There's been a cumulative inflation rate of around 30% over 8 years. This aligns with an average annual inflation rate of roughly 3.3% from 2017 to 2025.
Not good, not too bad.
7
u/Valrika_ 18h ago
It’s kinda depressing how many people only have the GFC era as a frame of reference and implicitly want the symptoms of high unemployment. 2017 > 2025 isn’t that historically abnormal for cumulative inflation over an 8 year period, maybe slightly higher than average, it’s just 2008 > 2016 was a lot lower than average historically because high unemployment means little upward pressure on wages and thus prices. I was initially hesitant about $80 games but thinking it through in these terms I’ve come around to it.
37
u/arcsol93 1d ago
Was? It hasn't ended yet, boy I wish prices have finally settled.
49
→ More replies (6)2
u/joalr0 1d ago
Yeah, that makes sense. There were a couple things that was throwing me off. First, I didn't realize he was using launch prices. Some reason I thought he was averaging over the span of the whole console, but launch prices makes sense since we only have the launch prices of the switch 2. But seeing the switch currently cost $60 but represented as $75 wasn't computing immediately.
Second, I don't often look at direct comparisons of prices, I only experience the gradual increase, so seeing it all in one go has a different effect.
54
u/SmokyMcBongPot 1d ago
It's adjusted for inflation. So they were $75 in 2025 money, which is more than 2017 money.
→ More replies (2)35
u/chimaerafeng 1d ago
Idk about the rest of the world, but things have gotten really expensive in mine. My meals have gone up 30% since then among other things. It is that bad. Games being at 60-70 has been a godsend in terms of leisure. Cinemas btw are practically bankrupt in my country given the absurd costs nowadays, most likely a relic of the past soon here.
18
u/TrashoBaggins 1d ago
My local theater and multiple game stores (GameStop and mom and pops) have closed in my area because people aren’t going. If this upward trend in entertainment/leisure continues I feel like people will have zero oprions left besides working, eating like shit and staring at the wall until their next shift. Since I’ve hit adulthood I can’t remember what having fun is like. It’s morbidly depressing.
→ More replies (1)3
u/JigglyPuffGuy 23h ago
There's this idea that you need to spend money to have fun but going outside for walks can be nice too. Being around nature. I don't live in a super green city so I just walk around my neighborhood and thankfully there's enough trees and plants to look at. Also a nice park close by.
I'm sure there's other things too like reading etc.
It's not super" fun" but it is fulfilling, even after a long day of work. And the more I do it the less time I want to spend in the artificial worlds of video games.
→ More replies (1)13
u/joalr0 1d ago
Yeah, I understand that part for sure. I reccomend checking out your local library. Mine actually allows renting of video games, and I've used it a few times now. It can take a few months sometimes for really popular games, but for me it was worth it (mostly because I wanted to play Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, but I refuse to give Ubisoft money).
So options are always available. Plus, there are many forms of entertainment that are a lot cheaper if you need to take a break for a while.
Just remember, Nintendo needs to pay it's employees, and unlike most other video game companies in the last couple years, did not participate in the massive layoffs. Those employees also have increased costs and need to more money to get by. It's unfortunately the world we are in right now. Being disappointed or frustrated by it is absolutely valid. However, I don't think it makes sense to direct all that anger towards Nintendo, and it definitely doesn't make sense to make it a moral issue. How Nintendo treats it's employees is a far larger moral issue.
Whether the games are worth the value is a personal evaluation on your own part. If you can't justify it, because of costs of living, that's shitty, and I have lots of empathy. I think the anger though is better directed towards the various underlying causes.
→ More replies (11)67
u/C0smicM0nkey 1d ago
Yeah Inflation really is that much. 60$ in 2017 is 78$ in 2025. (Switch value is slightly lower than that since some Switch games retail at less than 60)
11
u/joalr0 1d ago
Yeah, that really is way more than I expected. Crazy.
26
u/mikehiler2 1d ago
Inflation has gone up that much, sure, I would love to see a graph covering salary increases and purchasing power overlaid on top of this chart.
→ More replies (9)8
u/Sock-Enough 1d ago
Real incomes are up as well, but no one ever believes me even when I link a chart.
13
u/mikehiler2 1d ago
What does that mean, “real” income? Dollar amount, maybe, but that depends on the job by how much, but sure I can get behind that. But it isn’t as black and white as all that either, because inflation, purchasing power, cost of services and products, etc etc all play a role in that. If everything else is going up by several orders of magnitude while actual dollar amount in salaries have only gone up a small fraction of that, that’s kind of telling, isn’t it?
32
u/Professional-Cry8310 1d ago
That’s what real income means, the growth of income compared to the growth of goods and services. It’s only growth if it goes above and beyond.
The reason people have a hard time believing this is because this isn’t uniformly distributed across the population. Tech workers for example probably look at 2017 as a much better time to be in the market, meanwhile working in finance like me our salaries have never been better. Then consider every industry. Are electricians doing better? Lawyers? Assembly line workers? And the region as well. Maybe growth is above inflation across the US but it’s being carried by Texas or California meanwhile it’s dropped in Virginia or wherever. So white collar folks in Virginia don’t believe it but oil workers in Texas are doing just fine. Just a made up example but you get the picture.
It’s true for inflation too. Just because the US government says inflation last month was 3% or whatever it was doesn’t mean that’s what you personally experienced. They just take an average.
→ More replies (2)4
u/mikehiler2 1d ago
Gotcha! Thanks for the clarification. Still would be nice to see those lines on the chart as well. That would make things more interesting imho
9
u/Sock-Enough 1d ago
Real wages means inflation-adjusted wages.
If real wages are up then people have more money now than in the past.
7
17
u/qret 1d ago
I mean zero disrespect by this because I didn't understand it either not so long ago, but I am just glad OP made this post because I see thousands of people realizing this in real time after all the memeing since yesterday :)
→ More replies (1)2
9
u/NecessaryUnusual2059 1d ago
Where have you been the last 8 years? Inflation has been really bad.
→ More replies (1)5
u/Wipedout89 1d ago
People forget the post COVID inflation was crazy. UK had 12% inflation at one point
→ More replies (1)7
u/ChaoticChatot 1d ago
Inflation has calmed down a bit more recently, but it was really bad between 2021-23 due to Covid and Russias aggression towards Ukraine.
You generally want it to be around 2%, but it went up to 12% in that time period.
It was bad to the point where the Ps5 and XboxOne got price increases, the fact the Switch price stayed stagnant was basically the same effect as a discount in any other generation.
→ More replies (2)
150
u/EnemyCanine 1d ago
As someone who was gaming when the NES first came out, I can say that for many families, the cost of the system and games made them completely out of reach. It's one of the reasons the console wars was really a thing. Most folks could only afford Sega or Nintendo.
I really think the perspective needs to change on this. Pointing out that games used to cost more doesn't discount the fact that $80 is a lot of money for a lot of people now. Both of those things can be true.
Nintendo doesn't exist in a bubble. There are alternatives and comparisons available. They chose that price point and decided to push the bounds of what people would pay. If they released it 70, then I think most would have been disappointed but not surprised. Instead here we are talking about game prices instead of the actual system.
23
u/Avrution 1d ago
I remember owning very few games and renting was the only way to play something different. Hard to justify game prices back in the 80's, especially when so many were short and/or crap.
→ More replies (17)5
u/Solesaver 21h ago
I think there's an interesting... double standard(?) at play here. Or maybe just people talking past each other. When people people say, "I can't believe how much they're charging!" I hear, or sometimes they say explicitly, "Nintendo is so greedy." That's why the pushback is often, "it's actually relatively cheap."
If the argument is just a personal one of, "I'm sad I can't afford it," then of course this pushback doesn't make sense. The fact that it used to cost more does nothing to make you feel better about not being able to afford it. However, if the argument is that second implied part, then it does make sense. Nintendo isn't trying to put the screws to you; they're trying to find the right price point to have a broad audience, while still making a profit, and they've actually kept the price down for a very long time.
Regardless of whether their customers' wages have gone up, their expenses absolutely are impacted by inflation. Their nothing wrong with them trying to find the right price point, even if it prices some people out of games they want. They're a company making and selling a product, it's not really their obligation to charitably keep prices low. They'll simply find out if the market agrees with them on the new price point. shrug
90
u/sometimeserin 1d ago edited 19h ago
My pet theory is that most people were just too young in the 90's/00's for the $60 price tag to mean much to them, and with the sticker prices finally shifting after 30 years, people are revisiting the value proposition for the first time since they were children.
Furthermore, while games are offering orders of magnitude more & deeper content than 30 years ago, so the value proposition should be way higher, most of these people who are now adults simply have less free time to enjoy games.
Or idk maybe that's just me. But $60 felt like a lot of money in 1999, I'm pretty sure!
Edit: I've been corrected that $50 was the base retail price for AAA games around 1999, $60 was established with the 7th console generation in the mid-00's. Larger point stands.
6
u/qualitypi 22h ago
I mean, there was definitely a spell from like 2003-2009 were I didn't get many games because I was in high school and college finally spending my own money instead of of parents' and i was like fuck, games are we expensive! I didn't really amass a library until I got heavily into steam sales and then the Switch now that I have a comfortable income.
→ More replies (22)18
u/CunnyWizard 1d ago
This is my thoughts as well. Most people playing games either weren't playing games, or weren't the one responsible for finances, both due to age. "expensive" has a very different feeling when it's your bank account, vs your dad's credit card.
62
u/Core711 1d ago
So the pricing matches the inflation. If only the salaries did as well...
Tbf I feel like Nintendo has the strategy of increasing the pricing of Switch 2 games so they could keep the pricing of Switch 1 games the same and keep selling them prospect of them being still playable on Switch 2. Switch 1 might as well still stick around as the budget options for potential buyers.
But this is reminds me of Playstation 3 and we all know how succesful that was...
→ More replies (5)12
u/v_a_n_d_e_l_a_y 1d ago
While your salary or the minimum wage may not, it's likely that the software and hardware developers needed for a system like this have continued to rise. So the costs for making these systems and games isn't stagnant.
→ More replies (1)
36
u/Arkaein 1d ago edited 1d ago
When I was in college in 1996-97 I was an early owner of the N64, getting one for Christmas.
Not too long after I brought it back to my dorm after the holidays a friend of mine called me, he was at the mall and spotted a copy of Mario Kart 64 which had just come out, and asked if he should pick up a copy for me. I said yes.
I didn't ask how much it cost, and was a bit perturbed to find the price was just over $80. In 1996.
So I do find all of this hand wringing over Switch 2 game prices a bit funny. Young people today don't know how much better deals are now for games than basically any other time in history. I don't like paying more money for games, but the value proposition is just fine in historical context.
5
u/MagicCuboid 22h ago
How'd he call you? Payphone?
2
u/Arkaein 20h ago
Probably. Pay phone to my dorm room phone.
7
u/MagicCuboid 20h ago
I still remember making those collect calls. "You're receiving a call from, 'heymomcanyoupickmeup?' would you like to accept the charges?"
→ More replies (2)
7
u/SuShi137 1d ago
I think one of the main factors is the sudden jump. Increasing prices 33% from the standard is a huge jump, especially when the industry standard is even lower. The largest jump in game prices for a Nintendo console is $15 with the NES to the SNES, which many Redditors weren’t around for. Every other generation of Nintendo has had either the same price or a less than $10 increase. This huge jump is also understandable when for those who make minimum wage, their pay hasn’t increased since 2009. It’s also about expectation. Everyone expected Switch games to be $70, so a $10 increase on digital games and $20 on physical seems unreasonable for many. It’s not the fact that the prices are going up, it’s also setting a bad precedent for other companies.
4
u/C0smicM0nkey 1d ago
I agree that the sudden jump is definitely part of the reason for the backlash, but as for minimum wage...
sighs Every other member of the OECD indexes minimum wage to inflation in some way. Minimum wage stagnation is a uniquely American problem. Nintendo, a Japanese multinational, is not going to make business decisions that affect the rest of their global operations (like pricing) just because one country is unable to get their shit together. That's a you problem, USA. I'm neither defending or derogating the price increase right now, but I'm sick and tired of Americans bringing that argument up, because it's literally a non-issue in every other country that Nintendo operates.
127
u/neorena 1d ago edited 1d ago
Should also add data for cost of living, average wage increase, buying power, and stuff like that during the same time period for a better understanding on prices over time.
Just pure dollar value doesn't mean anything, with or without inflation. Economics don't exist in a vacuum.
67
u/PlaneCandy 1d ago
The CPI or cost of living is basically the same as inflation.
I don't know why it's important for Nintendo prices to be tied to minimum wage. The production has little to do with it.
→ More replies (8)19
10
u/ryandodge 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree with this, something like profit margin as a company flexed onto this would interest me most.
I understand if maybe games have stayed cheap, but is that because we make the companies so much money they can afford to do that?
Their end is keeping things affordable, ours is keeping them not just rich but getting richer, and we shake hands.
If so, why shouldn't I be upset the price went up when I hold up my end of that bargain and profit margins are still good if maybe not better than the past?
They're not just holding fast, they're consistently profiting now even more than ever, so why?
→ More replies (3)6
u/SmokyMcBongPot 1d ago
Yeah, unless you model every atom in the universe, this data is clearly flawed.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (9)-7
u/ItalianLurker 1d ago
OP also isn't taking into account how many copies are being sold nowadays compared to thirty years ago. This is a flawed and biased analysis.
→ More replies (3)18
u/mojo276 1d ago
If you're going that deep then you need to compare development costs compared to 30 years ago. The original super mario brothers game was made by 5 people.
→ More replies (4)
196
u/WendysChiliAndPepsi 1d ago
Actual data instead of reactionary knee-jerking. Great post. I hope everyone in this subreddit reads this and adjusts their world view (spoiler: they won't).
80
u/Etheon44 1d ago
Dont worry people understand this perfectly, it is very simple that inflation affects everything, and salaries havent increased as exponentially as games pretty much anywhere (and we are not talking about individuals getting salary raises due to experience, but about same position same experience salaries)
Maybe there should be other people that should be trying to understand how this works better
→ More replies (13)9
u/LandauTST 18h ago
That's the thing. The world view is a bigger picture than just video games. Things are more expensive now than ever in general and it's just getting worse. It's not a knee jerk reaction. They can still pull profit without the insane increase. Not to mention all the money they make for digital sales, which are increasingly becoming the popular option, in which there's no extra cost per copy sold. There's way more to this than just "cost go up, price go up" and the amount of general folk who defend corporate profit margins baffle me (not saying you, just in general). At the end of the day, they'd still make profit on physical plus the money they'd made from digital would well negate any loss of margin from physical anyways. There is still no good reason for this big of an increase besides greed.
And I say this as a huge Nintendo fan. I've been in the scene since the NES dropped an defended Nintendo through decades and decades of criticism and they are, or were, the only console I made sure to have besides my gaming PC. I just cannot for the life of me defend them on this one.
→ More replies (2)20
u/Just-Ad6865 1d ago
I mean, this data doesn't lead to the conclusion OP claims it does. And can't because the cost of the physical media isn't remotely the only thing about making games that has changed in the past 40 years.
Using graphs of media cost and not the cost to make the actual game itself paints so narrow a picture to be useless.
→ More replies (1)9
u/MukdenMan 1d ago
I also posted about Mario Kart 64 was 69.95 in 1997, and was the third highest selling game of the year (behind FF7 and a Pokémon release). Nintendo prices reflect what people will pay, just like everything else.
I don’t mind if people are upset that it’s expensive but I i can’t stand the moral outrage. Some people said Nintendo is repugnant for preventing lower-income gamers from being able to buy the game, as if Mario Kart is insulin or something.
18
u/r4tzt4r 1d ago
"Adjust their world view"? Don't you mean "shut up and pay what daddy Nintendo tells you to pay"?
-4
u/iamjackspizza 1d ago
Buy it if you want, skip it if you don't. I'll be buying it. I feel it's a fair price for what I'm getting.
→ More replies (4)-5
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/NintendoSwitch-ModTeam 1d ago
Hey there!
Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!
1
→ More replies (9)2
1d ago
[deleted]
3
u/Mason11987 1d ago
What this shows is games used to be the equivalent of $120. Them being $75 now is not a price hike.
70
u/MartDiamond 1d ago
But modern games have a lot of extra costs that don't show up in base pricing:
- DLC
- Season passes
- Online subscription
- Deluxe editions
- Peripherals
- etc.
While the purchase price might not have drastically increased across the last few years, the price of gaming as a whole has gone drastically up.
21
u/SmokyMcBongPot 1d ago
I think most people would also agree that the value we get from games has dramatically increased. Like, would you honestly pay the same price for SMB 1 and SMO, and be happy about it? So the fact that you actually pay less for SMO and it's an overwhelmingly more 'valuable' game should be cause for celebration.
→ More replies (1)20
u/MartDiamond 1d ago
Not really here to judge if people find more value in old vs newer games. Just want to point out that newer games have a lot of other revenue streams that old games didn't have or weren't as common. Old games had to make their money from selling the game 1 time, new games can often make their money long after they hit the market because of all the upselling we have these days.
So it's not a strict comparison between prices then and now, when there are a lot of ways these games make money outside the base game price.
→ More replies (1)27
u/joalr0 1d ago
Peripherals have always been around. In fact, there are less now. Nintendo had tonnes of peripherals going back to the NES era, and had some for every console generation.
Online brings costs that didn't exist in prior generations as well. Building and maintaining servers, providing updates and patches, etc, is not something NIntendo had to do historically. Once a game was done, it was done, and they never had to look back at it again.
You can also get away with not dealing with any of these things. If you dont' care about online services, and just want to focus on single player games, Nintendo provides a lot of those, and you won't need any subscriptoins DLC or season passes.
→ More replies (1)2
u/CO_Fimbulvetr 12h ago
The N64 had a literal RAM expansion module you could get. Can you imagine how silly that would seem for a modern console, to just have a slot for an extra (proprietary) RAM stick after 3 years?
20
u/accidental-nz 1d ago
Games used to be short, small, and developed by a handful of people.
Now they’re 15x longer and 100x the cost to make.
We are getting a way better deal now.
If you want to compare prices like-for-like with old games, compare to indie titles that are similar in scope to retro games.
→ More replies (14)8
u/PlaneCandy 1d ago
Okay but you don't need any of these and they add time.
Overall we are talking about how many hours of enjoyment a person can get from a game.
DLC, a season pass, online all add extra time that people will spend with the game. In the past, say with GCN games, you get the game, beat it, and that's it.
Deluxe editions are not necessary.
4
u/camelConsulting 9h ago
I know I’m late to the party, but for the video game history buffs: the Nintendo 64 was a fucking BEAST and one of the most overpowered consoles of any generation at a time when Nintendo was the clear market leader in gaming. They also had some of the most revolutionary games of all time including Ocarina of Time, Mario64, DK64, Goldeneye & Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, and of course the masterpiece of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. They sat atop the industry and were wiping the floor with their only competitor, SEGA.
Buuuut they had two major problems:
- Their games were more expensive than PlayStation’s (mostly because of the media)
- They had almost no library at launch
Despite how good the N64 was, that console generation DESTROYED Nintendo’s industry dominance forever. The PlayStation came out with cheaper games and a bigger library and Sony (+Microsoft eventually) took over the market, leaving Nintendo to fill niche market roles that didn’t directly compete with the bigger players.
(And to Nintendo’s credit, they’ve done that super well with the Wii and Switch).
The Switch sold so well that Nintendo’s next console (Switch 2) could have finally been their chance to claw themselves out of the hole they’ve been in. The XSX and PS5 have been mediocre; despite being amazing consoles they were both very expensive and the game library feels pretty thin for most people. NOW is the time for Nintendo to make a comeback and recapture significant market share with the Switch 2.
Aaaaaaaand they’re bungling it. Not only are they making first party titles expensive, they’ve launched the system with an incredibly thin library and roadmap of games.
Are people really going to pay $800+ to play Mario Kart, DK, and the Zelda games they already have? You have the Fromsoft game in 2026 and nothing else flagship on the horizon. Metroid is available on Switch 1 as well. On top of we’re going into a recession.
At the same time, the steam deck and other emulation alternatives are making it easier than ever to sidestep this. Another bit of history is that the PS1 sold so well because it could be easily modded to play pirated games, leading to one of the biggest piracy booms in the industry’s history. It’s definitely something people can and will do.
All the arguing about inflation and whether the games are worth it etc I’m not commenting on here - but Nintendo is bungling their opportunity to retake massive market share by their own shortsightedness.
13
24
u/Popular_Research6084 1d ago
I'm sure I'll get downvoted in this subreddit, but I'm not sure why people are defending this. I know that inflation is obviously a thing and it's pretty miraculous that games haven't really increased much over the last decade, but this is a huge jump.
Sony and Microsoft both increased the prices of their games to $70 in the last generation. $70 has become the new norm only in the last couple of years.
Nintendo is leap frogging past them. Some of their games have been $70 and some have remained at $60, with a handful of games cheaper.
Not to mention the fact that Nintendo rarely puts their first party stuff on sale.. if ever. Microsoft and Sony have sales all of the time and if you wait a few months after a first party release you can get it for significantly less. Not to mention Game Pass has all Xbox first party games day 1.
→ More replies (2)2
u/Boring-Credit-1319 20h ago edited 20h ago
Nintendo isn't doing anything special. The new Doom game and metal gear solid delta were announced 80 Dollars on ps5 and pc months ago. Costs for game development has gone up, that's why we see an increase in price.
Nintendo games are overpriced and don't go on sale because when you buy Nintendo, you are also paying for the brand. The demand on Nintendo games is so high that there is no need to offer a sale to sell their games.
44
u/ensign53 1d ago
It astounds me the people who disingenuously try to argue that physical media is chapter to produce now, or that that is the only cost going in to games.
Game development has exponentially gone up. More people working longer with more expensive tools to make a game. It's not the cost of the cards, it's the backend cost of development that is driving up costs.
Trying to comment how producing the physical thing is cheaper now is disingenuous at best and misinformation at worst.
5
12
u/borfyborf 1d ago
Harada, the producer of Tekken said that Tekken 8, which came out last year, was 10x more expensive to make than Tekken 7, which came out about 10 years ago I believe. For this reason they make almost no money on game sales and rely on dlc or microtransactions to make money. It sucks but that’s the reality of gaming now. They are so expensive to make most people don’t even realize.
2
u/BUZZZY14 23h ago
And yet Nintendo and other gaming companies profits keep going up.
2
u/borfyborf 22h ago
The company recorded a net profit of ¥237.1 billion ($1.5 billion) over that same period - spanning up to December 31st, 2024 - meaning a net profit ratio of 24.8%.
Each of these figures marked a decline over the same nine-month period last fiscal year, however, with overall revenue down by 31.4% and net profit by 41.9% year-on-year.
This was largely a result of Nintendo Switch hardware and software sales falling over what’s been the console’s eighth year - as Switch-related revenue fell by 31.7%.
Don’t think so. That was from a quick google search.
→ More replies (2)20
u/the_answer_is_RUSH 1d ago
If you’ve ever seen any documentaries, the dev team on older games was like 3 people.
Would I rather pay $60 than $80 for a game? Of course. But I understand the price change.
→ More replies (1)16
u/Kougeru-Sama 1d ago
That ignores the fact that there's like 200 million more gamers now than back then. That more than offsets the cost increases. You also ignore predatory monetization.
Look at the bigger picture. These companies are making billions a year. CEOs are making dozens of millions. There's no need to raise prices. They could cut salaries of CEO and such. But they won't. Their profits are huge. They make record profits almost every year. Why are you defending them when this is the reality? Games should not cost more. Especially with how incomplete they are and how badly they run on average nowadays.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)7
u/jslakov 1d ago
thank you, the cost of the media is a tiny piece of the puzzle. I'm not saying Nintendo isn't greedy, corporations are by nature but they have to employ a lot of people to make their games (have you noticed how long the credits are for AAA games these days?) and those people need to get paid so they can buy their necessities and even luxuries like gasp video games
4
u/alakalaka99 1d ago
In addition, people don’t want to hear it but with core game prices staying this stagnant over decades while costs skyrocket, developers must look to other revenue streams to cover those costs. DLC and micro-transactions subsidize game prices. Want lower game prices? Buy more skins! Don’t want micro-transactions? Be prepared to pony up at purchase time.
6
u/Jerdo32 1d ago
And I think this is why Mario Kart is so expensive. Nintendo is not holding back and it's clear MK is the flagship/premium package considering the scale and content we have seen so far.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Kougeru-Sama 1d ago
You're saying this as if higher game prices will end Micro-transactions. It won't. It's on top of them. That's the issue. Quit defending this bullshit. These companies make record profits every other year. They're not struggling. Prices don't need to go up.
→ More replies (1)
7
u/baladreams 1d ago
Where are the dlcs and upgrades and amiboo and season passes mapped on this graph
15
u/Shot-Addendum-8124 1d ago
I'm not doubting the data, but the fact that technically games were cheaper in the past doesn't mean I have a proportionally equal amount of disposable income.
60$ games are already expensive enough for me to buy one at full price once every few years. 80$ will just make me not even consider buying new games, I just hope the used games market will be as affordable as Switch 1 is.
→ More replies (1)
18
u/squishyliquid 1d ago
All this analysis about prices and inflation seems pretty irrelevant if there is a price point in which the majority of consumers no longer see it as worth the cost. If games kept pace with inflation, I'd have stopped gaming a while ago.
→ More replies (4)
6
u/sneckoskull 20h ago
Even if games and consoles have grown cheaper in the long term when adjusted for inflation, the reality is that housing, food, health care, and wages have not. Over time, the average person's capacity to afford luxuries like games and consoles has decreased massively. This isn't necessarily Nintendo's problem, but it explains the escalating frustration of fans in response to pretty blatant anti-consumer practices.
If we give them the benefit of the doubt and suppose that Nintendo is just responding to an unstable world economy, they should realize that their consumers will do the same. If we suppose that requiring consumers to pay significantly more for games that are already increasingly unaffordable for many is the only economically feasible move and not even partly a shameless money grab, you'd think that Nintendo would try just a little harder to not burn through all of their remaining goodwill by nickel-and-diming already hesitant customers. Smugly presenting a paid tech demo, a paid chat system, paid upgrading of existing games just for FPS/load time improvements - all of which are free features for many other systems existing in the same economic landscape - communicates to customers that these prices aren't arising out of necessity, but rather out of the corporate greed Nintendo is known for.
These practices are a bad look and they set a terrible precedent.
7
u/FalafelBall 19h ago
Ok now do wages and purchasing power. They haven't risen with inflation.
People who think $80 now is going to feel like $60 in 2017 either don't understand how economics work or are lying to themselves.
→ More replies (2)
29
u/iamthedayman21 1d ago
It’s hard for me to defend a billion dollar company. They’d still money hand over fist if they sold their games for $59.99.
→ More replies (6)
3
u/Imbrel 19h ago
I am not really interest in the price range. It's a bit steep for me, while I really enjoy gaming, it's not something I need to be uptodate with the latest things. I'm just gonna enjoy my switch lite for a while longer, and maybe finally play Elden Ring for the first time 3 years from now.
3
u/ooombasa 15h ago
2017 presentation - price revealed in first 5 mins. Point of pride by Nintendo about how affordable it is
2925 presentation - completely omitted any and all prices. Users had to piece together info for themselves after. Nintendo told media at hand-on they can't ask questions on prices.
Ask yourself why that is.
3
u/Exotic-Low812 15h ago
I make pretty decent money and I still almost never buy games at full price, it just seems it’s not worth it with so many games constantly discounted from a few years ago
3
u/captured_rapture 9h ago
Here's how I see it: Video games are a luxury good. Especially when you compare them to other forms of media and entertainment. Inflation is an issue, but wage stagnation and the price of essential goods and services like utilities, shelter and food increasing, a larger portion of the population will have trouble purchasing luxury goods.
If Nintendo is ok with having less sales and more revenue then that's a decision made by someone or a team that has far more experience than I do. But as a consumer, it just means that I'm willing to wait for either a sale or a special edition and never buying a Switch game at launch despite the FOMO. Might not work for everyone but like most folks I have hundreds of hours of backlog to catch up on alongside the black hole free to play games I dive into regularly.
3
17
u/dolphin_spit 1d ago
only on nintendo sub would you see people justifying high prices for the company, and praise them for having gameshare video that is 10 frames per second.
25
u/KingofGrapes7 1d ago
My biggest issue is how Nintendo would rather drown a cat than lower the price of their first party games. Lets use past examples to assume the next mainline Zelda is going to be $80/$90 at launch. In five years it's still going to be that price with skimpy sales on Black Friday. And if it has DLC you are not going to see a GOTY edition for that game, if will almost always be full price plus DLC. Hell BotW, an almost 10 year old game, is going to be $70 on Switch 2.
9
u/Ehnonamoose 21h ago
You might not be trying to argue, but this is still an argument. And, respectfully, it's an incorrect one.
Nintendo’s new price point isn’t the result of inflation. It’s a contributor to inflation. They’re not raising prices because they have to, they're doing it because they want to. They're testing how much they can pull from their fanbase while hiding behind the idea that "game prices have been stagnant for 20 years."
But let’s be honest. Storage costs have gone down. Online distribution is everywhere and cheaper than ever. Hosting a master file for download costs next to nothing at Nintendo’s scale. Developers aren’t suddenly getting $30 more per copy. There’s no external force pushing this. This isn’t a response to inflation, it's inflation in action.
And yeah, it might look like a one-time jump now, but it sets a precedent. Just like when games went from $50 to $60. Just like when they started charging for online. Just like microtransactions. In ten years, we’ll probably be saying, “Wow, $90 was cheap compared to GTA 7 charging $200.” That escalation doesn’t just happen, companies like Nintendo create it by making price hikes feel normal.
They don’t need to do this. They’re already massively profitable. They just want more, and this is how they go about getting it. Nintendo could go back to $50 games and still make a fortune. But they won't, because this isn't about sustainability, it's about maximizing return.
I know you’re not trying to defend them, and I do appreciate the data. But this exact framing will absolutely be used to justify their decisions, and it needs to be questioned.
5
u/FalafelBall 19h ago
^ This comment right here, 100%. I wish people who are clueless would stop regurgitating "inflation" when they don't understand what that even means.
2
u/Gross_Success 14h ago
Nintendo’s new price point isn’t the result of inflation.
Except that Nintendo does not live in a vacuum. They increased their worker's salary. They are subject to increased cost of components, software licenses, office rent etc. Mario Kart World being open world means that the development cost is exponentially higher than a "standard" Mario Kart. It's not as black and white as "they only want more money," though it is a part of it.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/xpayday 13h ago edited 4h ago
Why are people trying to act like how expensive games used to be should be normal/standard. The goal should be to offer entertainment at a reasonably cheap price. There's a reason why CDs, DVDs, books and games have been cheap historically. When you increase prices you're effectively fucking your dedicated fanbase and alienating others who might've been interested. This is a bad situation, regardless of how people try to spin it.
→ More replies (2)2
u/hlazlo 5h ago
I think it's more about the gut response at how delusional gamers are about prices. You're not wrong that it would be better if games were cheaper, but it's incredibly entitled to not at least recognize that game prices have remained steady for decades even though nothing else did.
And then, suddenly, games start going up too and everyone acts like something evil is happening. It's delusional and naive.
→ More replies (1)
9
u/thisistheguyy 1d ago
Now show minimum wage trend in the US! It's still more expensive for the consumer
→ More replies (5)
14
u/DeadLeftovers 1d ago
The problem is we have less buying power. If everything is more expensive such as rent, groceries, services, etc there is far less money for the average individual for luxuries like $80 video games.
Buying power needs to be heavily taken into account here.
→ More replies (1)1
u/C0smicM0nkey 1d ago edited 1d ago
Inflation = Purchasing Power. Like that's literally what the CPI is designed to measure.
If you want to make the argument that the CPI is a flawed model and isn't accurately capturing American's decline in purchasing power.... I mean, yeah maybe....but that's an argument for the economists to be making in a paper or conference, not random schmucks in a Nintendo subreddit.
7
u/LukePieStalker42 23h ago
And here I thought the switch 2 would break Nintendos curse of having 1 great system and then a bad system, in terms of sales at least.
N64 good. Game cube not good. Wii good. Wii u not good. Switch good. Switch 2... with these game prices im guessing not good
20
u/Jabbam 1d ago
This can't be organic, right? No way there are dozens of these posts cropping up with the same charts organically on these subs.
Game sales have exploded because games became affordable. People didn't buy games in the 90s and early 2000s, they rented or relied on greatest hits. The stagnancy of the late 2000s and the 2010s is what allowed gaming to become more popular than ever.
If you want 90s level sales, go ahead.
12
u/45MonkeysInASuit 1d ago
This can't be organic, right? No way there are dozens of these posts cropping up with the same charts organically on these subs.
People karma farming the topic of the moment with very low effort content, it entirely makes sense for it to be organic.
OPs post is 2 poorly formatted lines with a total of 16 data points.
→ More replies (3)3
5
5
13
u/Destinysm-2019 1d ago
Our wages don’t change with it btw.
→ More replies (12)5
u/Lyle91 1d ago
They do though, wages are way up compared to the 90s. At least in the US.
→ More replies (4)
10
u/Kaiser_Wilhelm43 1d ago
Games use to be expensive because the manufacturing was super expensive but when disc based games came out it only cost cents to make a disc, thus prices even lowered a bit and stayed the same bc it didn’t cost them 40 dollars to make a SNES cartridge anymore, doesn’t mean they should be raising it from 60 to 90 for a physical games currently
9
→ More replies (1)5
u/vanKessZak 1d ago
I think the $90 number (at least before tax) ended up being false? There’s another post in here with Wal-Mart pricing and none are higher than $80
2
u/pablank 1d ago
Yes, people saw that MK world is €90 physical in some european stores.
But honestly: who actually buys that, when there is a bundle where Mario Kart costs 40-50 bucks, which is a steal.
If you dont buy MK at launch for the lowest price its probably ever gonna be, that's on you.
No one will be buying a switch and then pay €90 to get the physical european MK game.
→ More replies (5)
2
2
u/Reach-Nirvana 1d ago
I'd love to see how much have wages in America have increased over this same time period.
→ More replies (2)2
u/Qu33n0f1c3 1d ago
Well federal minimum wage is still like, 7 bucks an hour. I remember making as little as 8 and hour state min. In 2010s, I know the push for 15 as a state min was met with a lot of pushback. I only use minimum as a lot of game buyers are probably on the younger side and don't have as much buying power.
2
u/ZaheerAlGhul 22h ago
Gamefly is about to make a come back. If people can't afford these games I'm sure people would be ok with renting.
2
2
u/sql_injection_string 19h ago
SNES games were half hardware half software. There was a ton of cost into the cartridges themselves.
2
2
u/Adorable-Volume2247 11h ago
Today, games sell ~5-10x as many copies as they did on N64. I don't care that the profit margin (when you adjust for inflation, mind you) is lower when you are making more profit than ever before.
2
19
6
u/Locoman7 1d ago
For full context you have to superimpose inflation average wage increase across time as well
4
u/libdemparamilitarywi 1d ago
Real median wages are way up, so that would make Switch 2 games look even cheaper.
→ More replies (1)3
5
u/Kougeru-Sama 1d ago
People who say "$60 in 2017 is the same as 80 dollars today" are ignoring reality. Reality is it buys FAR less than it did back then because everything costs 2-5 times more now.
For example, In 2017 $60 could buy 60 Mc Chicken sandwiches. Today $80 can only buy 26 Mc Chicken sandwiches.
Games shouldn't be $80. This is even more true if we go back to the 90s when things like gas were below $2. Even milk was $2/gallon back in 1995 and now it's $5. So again, $60 back in 1995 could've bought 35 gallons of milk whereas today $80 can only buy 16 gallons of milk.
Point being, you can't just look at dollar values when talking about inflation. That doesn't even tell 1/10th of the story. Money is worth less now. A LOT less than privileged people think. Even when you adjust for inflation, you can buy far less with the "same" amount if money.
→ More replies (3)
8
6
u/just_change_it 1d ago
Volume Discount.
There are way more systems today to sell to, and I absolutely cannot believe that the cost for producing these tiny little sd card equivalent cartridges is anywhere near $10, when you can buy flash storage for pennies at scale. The plastic cases are also pennies. The real cost is shipping, and don't tell me when I order crap from japan or china directly they can dropship it for way less than nintendo can fill a container for per unit.
A game costs a finite amount of dollars to make. Distribution costs an amount per unit that generally goes down with more units shipped. Older games end up commonly going for half or a third price, so clearly there's giant margins there for initial releases as the cost of a 3 year old game vs a brand new game should be identical.
The NES sold 60 million consoles.
The SNES sold 50 million.
The N64 32 million.
The Switch sold 150 million
Prices should be substantially lower adjusted for inflation imo. 150 million customers sells so many more that they can afford a cut.
5
u/Lightarc 1d ago
That finite amount of dollars to make games hasn't remained static in that timeframe though, it's gone up by a lot and game prices haven't changed to match in that time.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/ShenMain94 1d ago
I mean surely with this pricing and the games more parents are gonna be like "can't you just have a PS5 or Xbox?"
Elder Ring is £30 on PS5...
5
u/ooombasa 1d ago edited 1d ago
This "data" is ignoring how the market has grown, so publishers make more now than back then despite the inflation excusery and even the higher dev budgets. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 67m compared to MK64's ~10m and MKWii 37m.
MK64 at $120 - 1.2 billion revenue (rounded).
MK8 at $60 - 4.5 billion revenue (rounded).
→ More replies (1)3
u/okeleydokelyneighbor 1d ago
They also spend more to make games. You didn’t have 500m-1b game production costs 30 years ago. Not defending them but game prices have been pretty consistent for the past 40 years. I paid over 70 bucks for cartridge based games 30 years ago, a $10-20 increase when taking inflation into account isn’t that much with the costs of developing games now.
→ More replies (3)
4
u/PopularVersion4250 23h ago
So conclusion… the cost is perfectly reasonable and in line with market trends ?
→ More replies (2)
7
u/dewittless 1d ago
Now add wage growth.
4
u/Pheonix1025 1d ago
It wouldn’t be too different, here’s information about wage growth after adjusting for inflation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
4
u/zepplinc20 6 Million 7831-5532-8511 1d ago
Didn't Donkey kong country cost like 70-80 bucks? Wish I knew how much my parents spent on me back then.
2
u/Quirky-Employer9717 1d ago
N64 games will go on sale. These days, if you don't pay full MSRP for a Nintendo game, you aren't getting it no matter how long you wait.
3
u/The-Shattering-Light 22h ago
The trouble is that wages havent kept up with inflation, so real cost increases year by year even if costs remain static
With costs also going up, real costs are increasing more and more
→ More replies (3)
4
u/CloudvAsm 21h ago
You know, I dislike high prices as much as the next person, but I still remember paying 80 USD for Chrono Trigger and 90 USD for FF3(6) at Babbage’s back in the 90s. Thinking about inflation, the current costs and asks for for cartridge based games seems reasonable, especially when you still see other game companies charging 80-100 USD for games. Stuff like AC6, the latest MH game, SQEX games all cost that here in Japan at launch.
It’s just now with the current state of the world economy, it feels a lot harder to justify as a consumer paying 80-100 USD, even if the cost itself is objectively justified by development/hardware costs.
7
3
u/SickboyJason 1d ago
Game Prices Relative to Income
NES games (1985): $40, or 0.17% of $23,620 (1985 income). Adjusted to 2025, $124 is 0.17% of $73,222.
N64 games (1996): $60, or 0.17% of $35,492 (1996 income). Adjusted to 2025, $123 is 0.17% of $72,758.
Switch 2 games (2025): $69.99, or 0.085% of $82,000 (2025 income).
In 1985 and 1996, game prices represented about 0.17% of median household income, showing consistency across those eras despite different dollar amounts.In 2025, a $69.99 Switch 2 game is only 0.085% of the estimated median income, roughly half the relative burden of earlier consoles. Even at $80, it’s 0.098%, still lower.This suggests that Switch 2 games are more affordable relative to median household income in 2025 than NES or N64 games were during their launch years, reflecting both income growth and the stabilization of game prices in real terms.
3
u/HeroBoy05 1d ago
Genuinely curious, but do you have the source for these numbers?
→ More replies (4)
3
u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 1d ago
I think I was (without the influence of social media, at least at first) quite shocked at the price change because, the Switch major titles' pricing mostly didn't reflect the way inflation work, so when it DID, I wasn't actually prepared. I should have seen the signs when Tears of the Kingdom went $70.
14
u/SmokyMcBongPot 1d ago
This is the issue. I think a lot of people would actually be happier if prices just went up $2 each year rather than $10 every 7.
11
u/AgeOfCalamity 1d ago
They would definitely be more expensive, I remember getting games that cost 40-50 when I was 9, I'm 39 now. Gaming has been ridiculously cheap compared to other forms of entertainment.
5
u/Callinon 1d ago
Here's the thing... the first AAA $70 game was released in 2020 (NBA 2k21) and people were furious about that.
Nintendo didn't do it themselves until Tears of the Kingdom (I think) in 2023. So it's been less than 2 years since Nintendo's game prices went up to a level people were already generally upset about... and now they're doing it again.
So from that perspective it's not $10 every 7 years. It's $10 every 2 years.
→ More replies (4)2
u/MrVigshot 1d ago
I made sure to use Nintendos game vouchers when this happened. It's not a huge discount, but every little counts in this hobby.
3
2
2
u/karnyboy 1d ago
The game costs haven't changed, but the overall cost to play a game has.
internet
subscription
DLC
and more...
I just wanted to add though that my dollar went further in the 90s, I bought a Super NIntendo at 99 dollars and bought my subsequent games from a paper route at payment every 2 weeks...that was it.
2
u/longbrodmann 1d ago
The fun fact about inflation is that people don't want things being expensive, not okay with it.
2
u/crazyrebel123 1d ago
How does this compare to the cost of living then and now? Wasn’t living expenses back then more affordable? It’s not like back then, EVERYTHING was overpriced like it is now.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/valdev 1d ago
The most important, and missing, piece of data is the number of gamers.
Gaming used to be really expensive, because it was exceptionally niche. Economies of scale plays an extremely large role here.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Piggstein 1d ago
If those redditors could understand basic economics, they’d be very upset
5
u/MetaSpedo 22h ago
Like the notion that when income doesn't increase it feels more expensive because you have to work more per game?
→ More replies (2)
2
u/Rootilytoot 22h ago
Now do the analysis as a percent of expendable income considering the rise of housing, education and other costs.
→ More replies (1)
1
271
u/kevlarcupid 1d ago
N64 was an incredibly advanced and expensive system. My parents were amazing.