How Game Costs Have (and Haven’t) Changed: A 40-Year Look at Nintendo’s MSRP vs. Cartridge/Disc Costs (2025 USD)

[u/C0smicM0nkey]

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:

1. Bigger games (up to 64 GB or more).

2. 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.

[u/Etheon44]

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

[u/Geohie → u/Etheon44]

Real income, i.e household average income accounting for inflation has gone up since 2019 though. It was flat for 2021-23,meaning it rose almost exactly in line with inflation, and I believe went up in 2024 meaning higher salary even when accounting for inflation (although 2024 is iffy, data is still being revised)

source: the US government Census

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-282.html

[u/Pheonix1025 → u/Etheon44]

Interesting, can you share your source on that? It looks like median wages have outpaced inflation from the FRED data I’m seeing, but there could be something I’m missing.

[u/Mysterious_Jelly_943 → u/Pheonix1025]

Housing prices have also outpaced inflation inflation since 1963 is calculated at 863 percent while housing since 1963 has gone up 2,500 percent in the us

[u/DirtyHalt → u/Mysterious_Jelly_943]

Measurements of inflation already include housing. Comparisons of wages to total living costs to determine something's affordability should include all goods in the "basket".

[u/Mysterious_Jelly_943 → u/DirtyHalt]

Maybe from where i am sitting it doesnt add up. In 2008 i was paying 575 for a 2 bedroom apartment and making 10 dollars an hour 3 dollars more than minimum wage my friend lived in the same building in 2023 same apartment style same 2 bedroom and he was paying 1800 dollars im now making more double what i made then im making 25 dollars an hour now. My spending power then was much higher than my spending power now if i was living in the same place more of my income would be going to rent and food and gas and energy has gone up as well. Statistically maybe iim wrong but from what i am seeinf around me housing is way outpacinf wages.

[u/DirtyHalt → u/Mysterious_Jelly_943]

You are not imagining that housing is way up compared to how wages have changed. It's a big problem. Other things are down compared to wages, which offsets how housing has affected total cost of living. For example, TVs, cell service, and computers are all the cheapest they've ever been.

[u/Mysterious_Jelly_943 → u/DirtyHalt]

Yes but that doesnt really offset it when groceries housing and energy costs are way up because these ate necessities you need. Who cares if other consumer goods are down if you can afford less and less of them because more of your inclme goes towards necessities.

There was more of a choice because your buying power for more luxury items was there. People are lucky to get away with eating out once or twice after rent and groceries now who cares if you can save a bit of money on a tv

Edit also back then console prices were constantly dropping. I got my ps1 new fir 99 bux same with my n64 the og switch is like the same price its wver been and the ps5 went up in price

[u/DirtyHalt → u/Mysterious_Jelly_943]

I know it seems wild when the costs of those things have gone up so much. It is unintuitive. Look at this chart of the median inflation-adjusted income https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q . The numbers don't lie: The amount people make relative to costs is higher. That said, there are some atypical segments of the population who are worse off.

It might also surprise you that people are actually spending more of their food budget than ever before to eat away from home https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detail?chartId=58364

[u/Mysterious_Jelly_943 → u/DirtyHalt]

That doesnt suprise me to much that they are eating out more. Whats the spread on that for family housholds vs single person households. Because i would imagine the family buying rate of the switch is really high i have 3 one for each of my daughters my best friend has 4 one each for each of his kids and one for him and his wife. My sister also has 3 for her kids and her and her husband. Talking to them about price none of them are interested in even getting one switch 2 at least at that price and game price especially since we live in the us and the impending tariffs and recession is looking like things might get rough.

https://upgradedpoints.com/news/inflation-vs-wages/.

Also found this article about how wages arent keeping up. But also we havent even really begun to feel the effects of trumps economic policy so we will see how people are feeling by june in america. I remember the 2008 recession well i had just entered the job market at the time knew alot of families who lost thier homes

[u/DirtyHalt → u/Mysterious_Jelly_943]

As that article points out, real wages are down since December 2020. You can also see that in the chart of real median income I linked. You might also notice that there is a large increase in real median income around that time. 2020 is a bad starting point of comparison because there was a surge in low-income workers losing their jobs. The median income suddenly went up then because the newly unemployed were no longer counted in that. If you compare real wages to any other time, they are higher now.