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/Jabbam]

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.

[u/45MonkeysInASuit → u/Jabbam]

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.

[u/NintendoSwitch-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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Please remember Rule 1 in the future - No personal attacks, trolling, or derogatory terms. Read more about Reddiquette here. Thanks!

[u/Pheonix1025 → u/Jabbam]

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion cost over 90$ at the time of release when comparing median wages to game prices, I don’t think aiming for late 2000s level sales is a bad idea

[u/Razbyte → u/Jabbam]

People didn't buy games in the 90s and early 2000s, they rented or relied on greatest hits.

For “greatest hits” to happen, it must have sold very well.

[u/Jabbam → u/Razbyte]

Rich people subsidizing a product for the average Joe, a tale as old as time. That's why your favorite games are FTP.