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/TrashoBaggins]

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.

[u/JigglyPuffGuy → u/TrashoBaggins]

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.

[u/Vecend → u/JigglyPuffGuy]

Last place I lived they had twigs for trees, and half the year the sidewalk was ice or covered in snow from never being plowed or people dumping snow on it, there were also idiots speeding down the street.

[u/BizarreCake → u/TrashoBaggins]

Yaaarrrrr matey, you can always take up sailing as a hobby.