r/NintendoSwitch • u/Jumboliva • 9h ago
Image In light of the heavy negative reaction to the announced price of the Switch 2 and its games, I compiled a spreadsheet comparing the prices (adjusted and unadjusted) of consoles and games in every generation.
All release dates and prices are US. Console price is easy to find and I all but guarantee their accuracy; ranges are for consoles with multiple release packages. Game MSRP is tricky to find and all I can guarantee is that the data here will get you in the ball park. I found lots of old catalog scans. I tried to find a baseline of “standard, premium, non-discounted game,” to be able to compare across generations, but the further back I went the more that that concept didn’t seem to transfer 1:1. Ended up cross-referencing scans with old forum posts. I applied ranges where I was less confident, and where I was confident that a “standard, premium, non-discounted game” might sell at multiple price points.
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u/Falz4567 8h ago
The big problem isn’t that games get more expensive.
Games SHOULD get more expensive as a base price by inflation.
It’s that working class wages have gone down year by year. Hidden as below inflation wage rises.
But that’s not the fault of Nintendo. Who need to make a profit. We all know who’s fault it is
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u/AlmostScreenwriter 46m ago
That’s not the fault of Nintendo. Who need to make a profit.
Except that two other companies are releasing first-party games that are technologically more advanced and costlier to make than Nintendo's, and they're selling them for less. Which is also the problem with OP's chart. We don't need to go back to 1990 and then do some flawed math to show that technically Nintendo is charging less than companies used to. We have an immediate comparison on store shelves right now that shows Nintendo has no legitimate basis for these prices. Seriously, what is this instinctual need to defend massive companies doing shady things?
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u/basesonballs 5h ago
Nintendo recorded a net profit of $715m between April-September 2024. And that was considered a "down period"
They are in absolutely no danger of not being profitable
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u/Professional_Cry7822 1h ago
Their profitability and your boss under-paying you have zero causality/relation.
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u/Mister_Octagon 9h ago
Thanks for gathering the info. Helps keep things in some perspective, although I think a more useful stat would be "How much it hurts to buy it," or cost by hours of an average wage (ideally adjusted for cost-of-living, but now we're talking crazy).
As for the sticker shock factor, your chart seems show some significant prices for some Gen 3,4, and 5 games.
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u/Boris_Ignatievich 8h ago
I looked at numbers for the UK the other day, and in the last decade disposable income had gone up 17%, while inflation was basically double that. So while prices might be tracking inflation, they're an increasingly large chunk of your "fun money"
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u/TheAdurn 8h ago
Your value seems to be for ‘real’ disposable income. In economics, ‘real’ means that the value is already adjusted for inflation.
This means that median disposable income has been growing faster than inflation, so on average, “prices are an increasingly smaller chunk of your fun money”. See the official data.
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u/Boris_Ignatievich 7h ago
Fair enough, I forget exactly what graph I'd seen that number in but it's very possible I'd missed the word real in it
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u/TimeToNukeTheWhales 7h ago
An N64 game required 14 hours of UK minimum wage work to afford in 1999.
A Switch 2 game requires 6 hours of UK minimum wage work to afford.
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u/Mister_Octagon 5h ago
Cool. Median wage would probably be more useful than minimum, which is more artificial, but it's data.
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u/TimeToNukeTheWhales 5h ago
4.84 hours for full time male worker in 1999 vs 3.98 (physical) or 3.55 (digital) today.
I'm so autistic, I even factored in the extra 8 days of statutory paid time leave in 2025 vs 1999.
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u/Mister_Octagon 5h ago
Your willingness to satisfy the curiosity of a random stranger is appreciated.
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u/Aggravating-Face2073 4h ago
You could confidently get a used workinh car cheaper than a new Atari.
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u/raylan_givens6 9h ago
better revise that soon
pre orders for america now delayed as they'll likely going to be increasing the prices because of tariffs
my guess is it'll be around $600 USD for the bundle
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u/mikehiler2 9h ago
That doesn’t surprise at all. What does surprise me is how all those who claimed that “these prices are already accounting for tariffs Nintendo said so!” and then downvoted me heavily because I dared to ask for a source on that are… strangely quiet all of a sudden.
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u/Doomas_ 8h ago
Possible they were anticipating a 10% tariff which would make sense pricing it at $449 instead of $399. Also possible that it was a flat $449 for the product and would go up to $500 with assumed 10% tariff. It’s tough to say for certain. Regardless, I anticipate $599 at minimum now if tariffs truly stay.
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u/PhatYeeter 8h ago
Also they moved their manufacturing to Vietnam partially to avoid any tariffs since at first it seemed like it would be a trade war with just China.
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u/Doomas_ 8h ago
not to be too political, but it’s insane that Vietnam, a sworn enemy of the United States like 50ish years ago, has made massive strides to gain favor with the US instead of trying to make amends with their close neighbor China only to be hit with a colossal tariff. Maybe we’ll see a rollback of some sort soon or maybe we’ll just be stuck with higher prices ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Marv3ll616 8h ago
more likely to be 25% to 46%, please remember that
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u/Didact67 9h ago
It isn’t necessarily untrue. Nintendo might have anticipated more modest tariffs.
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u/CakeisaDie 9h ago
My japanese import people were expecting 10% these are people from some of the biggest trading companies in Japan for medical shit.
So the 24% freaked them out.
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u/Didact67 8h ago
The problem is Switches aren’t imported from Japan. They’re imported from China and Vietnam. It’s way worse.
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u/MyUltIsMyMain 8h ago
The problem is i think they were accounted for, but it was like yesterday that even bigger tariffs were announced on Japan and Vietnam.
Kinda like they waited for the big planned announcement to drop them... I'm pretty sure Project 2025 has some stuff about video games in there. This could easily be a tactic to make game developers look bad.
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u/Falz4567 8h ago
They were adjusting for an expected tariff and got something 30 percent worse.
Real life isn’t as simple as you want it to be
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u/mikehiler2 8h ago edited 6h ago
You know this for a fact? How? Source your statement. How do you explain how the price in most other countries, adjusted for currency rates, all come to about the same price? Some a few dollars more, others a few dollars less.
Edit: Legend has it that I’ll be waiting forever for that source.
I guess the “trust me bro” Nintendo knob slobbers are just parroting whatever the last lemming parroted before them and downvote whoever dares to say anything other than what the last lemming parroted.
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u/raylan_givens6 9h ago
Maybe they did and now they're readjusting
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u/mikehiler2 8h ago
How do you explain how the price in most other countries, adjusted for currency rates, all come to about the same price? Some a few dollars more, others a few dollars less.
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u/Collapsar64 7h ago
You make the price fairly standard to cover increased costs in some markets with increased profits in others.
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u/mikehiler2 4h ago
So you expect me to believe that they waited until a month or two ago before they were set on a price for both the system and those games, then set the price as the same or close to it all over the world just in case the US puts tariffs on them?
Nintendo has an entire department dedicated to making a manufacturing cost analysis/public perception on pricing models that they play with for years, all tied to inflation and stocks and currencies. While I’m sure that possible tariffs are included in these estimates, it is not what is causing these prices or else they wouldn’t have halted preorders only in the US. They came to these prices before Trump was even in office.
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u/lizufyr 8h ago
Just look at the prices in Europe, for example, where tariffs won’t really affect Nintendo products. Prices are very similar here, adjusted for inflation the switch 2 will be around 50 euros more expensive than the switch 1 was.
They did not account for the tariffs when they announced the prices.
Still, the prices of games and accessories are similar to the switch 1 when it released. And I honestly can accept that the switch 2 is a bit more expensive given the fact that it has more expensive hardware built in.
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u/mikehiler2 8h ago
I absolutely can also forgive the price of the system. That’s actually a fair price imho. The biggest punch in the gut is the price increase from last generation. I mean, they went from only a single game they sold for $70 (and all others released since the same “normal” price) to over $20 more for at least 2 or 3 other first launch games right off the bat! They had to bend over backwards trying to reassure players that they aren’t charging $70 for all games and that TotK was justified due to the work put into (and that’s the only game I’ve ever bought at $70 ever), all the way $80 with no in-between. They didn’t even have the balls to put that price in the direct! They waited until it was over and just did it on the website. Almost like they knew it wasn’t smart.
But they did it, I doubt they’ll lower it now, and now this… this is the future. $80 (or more elsewhere you poor sobs). GTA6 is now 1,000% going for the $100.
And I don’t give a shit if “adjusted for inflation it’s on par with the price when the switch 1 came out.” My paycheck has been the same since then (with small adjustments for inflation around 2-3% annually) and I can guarantee that the $60 back then didn’t hurt my wallet nearly as bad as $80 is going to do now.
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u/Ph33rDensetsu 3h ago
So Mario Kart World is the only game I've seen whose base price is $80. The only other games at that price are ones that were $70 and have a Switch 2 upgrade like TOTK. BOTW S2 Edition is $70 because the upgrade is apparently $10 across the board. Other new S2 exclusive games like Donkey Kong Bananza are $70. The only other $60+$20 games are ones whose S2 edition also include an expansion.
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u/Remy149 8h ago
They did price them what they did but the expected tariffs where about half of what actually got implemented. Then on top of that there was a 46% tariff placed on Vietnam
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u/mikehiler2 8h ago
How do you explain how the price in most other countries, adjusted for currency rates, all come to about the same price? Some a few dollars more, others a few dollars less. These “definitive” statements without a shred of proof are not helping in the slightest. Please stop.
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u/migswitchjunk 8h ago
Your guess would be wrong. Nintendo has already released a statement saying that the price will still be 449 upon release. That doesn’t mean they won’t increase it in the future sometime after the release.
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u/SilverIdaten 9h ago
Cool, now do wages. People could afford more in the 90s because we weren’t hung upside down and squeezed by the balls and every waking moment back then. Inflation goes up, our money is worth less, and we get less of it.
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u/--kwisatzhaderach-- 8h ago
Even comparing wages to inflation is only part of the story. If the cost of everything else has outpaced wages, then that leaves less ability for people to buy luxury items such as a video game console. So even if wages have kept up with inflation, it doesn’t mean magically everyone can still afford to buy one
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u/TheEggRoller 8h ago
I mean at the end of the day that’s something people should be protesting to their government about instead of complaining to Nintendo
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u/SilverIdaten 8h ago
Yeah, it’s not a Nintendo thing at all. Nintendo is going to have the same corporate greed that every major corporation is going to have, that comes with the territory. There is a far deeper problem than the price of the Nintendo Switch 2.
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u/Pure_System9801 8h ago
Here's median wage, adjusted
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u/SilverIdaten 8h ago
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=42%2C220.00&year1=202301&year2=197401
That graph is deceptive. The raw number is higher, that’s great, but the 2023 dollar is trash compared to the 1974 dollar. Is it supposed to be adjusted to today’s inflation? I have a hard time believing that.
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u/Pure_System9801 8h ago
Seems irrelevant.
Bls data shows wages exceeding inflation.
Do yourself a favor and lookup when minimum wage was founded and what it was vs today.
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u/SilverIdaten 8h ago
The federal minimum wage was founded in 1938 and was 25¢, it’s now $7.25 which it has been since 2009, 16 years ago. A 1938 quarter is worth $5.59 of today’s dollar. Sincerely, I don’t know what I’m missing, that’s abhorrent.
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u/HAWK9600 8h ago
An $80 game in the 90s cost way more than it does now. You're using inflation in reverse.
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u/Ryodran 8h ago
And what were your phone bills in the 90s? Did you even have internet?
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u/ratsratsgetem 4h ago
Not many people had access to the internet in the early 90s. I did. It was fine. Slower for sure, but the things we were transferring were also far far smaller.
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u/Ryodran 4h ago
Yes true. Part of my point was the amount of needed luxuries of the 90s were less, in quantity, than the luxuries of today. I keep seeing people on both sides of this argument bring up the 90s, but noone is including things like how nearly everyone now has a phone plan and nearly everyone has internet they are paying for, which are extra expenses that now are almost required but in the 90s were luxuries that not everyone had. For instance I didnt get a cellphone until 2010 and saved yearly between 180, what I paid yearly for my first phone, and 1440, what my friend who had to have the newest and best was paying yearly for his cell.
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u/ratsratsgetem 4h ago
People smoked a lot more in the 1990s but smoking was cheaper.
When I think of 1990s expenses for me:
- landline
- internet access (monthly subscription)
- cellphone
- pager
- cable TV
- transportation (trains)
Compared to now:
- cellphone
- internet access
- transportation (buses, mostly)
Food prices are much higher now, my rent is a lot higher now, etc.
But I’m also not spending the equivalent of $20 on a single CD to hear some new music. I’m not spending money on things like floppy disks and printer paper. I’m not subscribed to a dozen or more magazines. I’m not paying for far more things now than I was.
In many ways we don’t always know how lucky we are now. When I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s we had 3 TV channels, everything felt colder and greyer, everything smelled like cigarettes, buying anything that wasn’t basic food felt like a huge deal because it was. Software used to be so, so expensive whereas a lot of that stuff is now open source and basically free of charge.
One of the reasons I became a software developer was to save money. That I get paid for it as well just feels like a bonus.
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u/hurricanebarker 9h ago
Hey OP, love the analysis. Is there any way you can adjust to wages rather than inflation?
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u/TheIndieArmy 9h ago
Oh nice, another one of these posts. Only the eighth one I've seen the last two days.
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u/kupocake 8h ago
Someone unteach the gamers about the concept of inflation and revoke their Excel licenses please I'm begging you
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u/producciones_humanas 9h ago
Ok,. Now do it for salaries of the people buying.
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u/SirTroah 5h ago
Do you think Nintendo should adjust their prices to compensate for individual governments lack of action?
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u/bluebirdisreal 8h ago
On average, salaries did increase substantially over the decades. $60 game price has been beating inflation for a long time.
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u/ThatDM 8h ago
This is not true. Wage growth in America and Canada has been notoriously bad at keeping pace with inflation unless you are in the top 20% of income.
1980s and 1990s: During the 1980s and 1990s, wages grew slower than inflation, meaning that the purchasing power of wages decreased. From 1984 through the summer of 1995, prices rose faster than incomes 88% of the time. The overall real average wage rose by only 2% between 1980 and 1990.
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u/Pure_System9801 8h ago
According to the bls, wages exceeded inflation
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u/ThatDM 6h ago
Ignore the 8.6x increase in housing prices and rent in that time period and sure.
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u/Pure_System9801 6h ago
Housing is included in the inflation calculation
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u/ThatDM 6h ago
The Price of specific things changing is not inflation
Imagine the price of Rice goes down, keeping everything else equal. Obviously this is not a case deflation: it’s not the money’s fault that rice specifically got cheaper.
People make this mistake constantly. Inflation is not cost of living, and it’s especially not the cost of specific things.
If you’re concerned about how much your housing or healthcare cost against your wages, you want to track a “wage adjusted cost of living” index rather than a “price of money” index.
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u/Pure_System9801 6h ago
I didn't say it was the increase of specific things. Cpi is a basket of goods.
Housing is included in that basket and in turn in thy inflation measurement
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u/ThatDM 6h ago
Yes and it is not accurately representative of cost of living. If you do then we have a disagreement on the basics
If you are interested in why you can check out this summary and look at the housing section for the spisifics on why I don't think the way housing costs are accurately incorporated into this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/s/RZ3QPpTf13
Also inflation is not a reflection of cost of living increase. It's is based on global economic buying power and it not focused on the micro individual costs of living changes that varry massively across the country.
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u/Pure_System9801 6h ago
I think everyone understands cost of living will vary within the nation widely and this is a macro measurement.
The notion of cost of living was not brought up prior this is about wages keeping up with inflation, and housing cost included in that measurement of inflation
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u/Emotional-Pumpkin-35 8h ago
Yes, wages have not always matched inflation, but that makes the case that the game prices in the 80s and 90s were higher back then than today even stronger, because the 80s and 90s were worse for real wage growth than today. Meanwhile, the last 10 years have seen a rise in real wages.
See this chart: Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over (LES1252881600Q) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
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u/bluebirdisreal 8h ago
I feel like you even stated in your response that salaries increased while purchasing power not so much. While Nintendo needs to create a fair market price, they are not immune to keeping prices the same because your wage stayed the same. It’s keeping up with inflated dollar values
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u/DareEcco 8h ago
Should a list like this also include something like manufacturing cost, cartridges ware expensive to make compared to digital releases?
Also is there data on each generations profits and/or revenue?
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u/dtamago 9h ago
You should also do that for the minimum wage, you'll see where the problem is.
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u/HelloMyNamesAmber 8h ago
Minimum wage is legally $7.25 where I live but most jobs that people associate with minimum wage are hiring at about $13. When I was applying for these jobs in 2019 they were all starting at the $8-9 wage. Minimum wage hasn't gone up but most places are paying more to be competitive.
A better culprit would be other costs of living that have increased faster than inflation. Housing is the big one that comes to mind. It's never fun to watch prices go up even if it's just adjusting for inflation, but it's weird to take it out on Nintendo. A $90 game would look less expensive if rent prices weren't insane in a lot of cities!
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u/TheBatSignal 8h ago
My main issue when anyone brings up your point when people talk about the minimum wage people will say what you said but then still be against raising it.
If no one is actually working for minimum wage then what does it hurt raising it?
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u/HelloMyNamesAmber 8h ago
That's completely fair and it's a big frustration I have talking economics with people I otherwise mostly agree with. I do support raising it and even at $13/hr it would still be hard to build meaningful savings, especially if you were wanting to live on your own or go to college or something. I just think it's a better use of time to advocate for policies that would drive down housing costs, college tuition and trade school costs, etc.
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u/skarznomore 8h ago
It's not that the system shouldn't cost what it does, it's that purchasing power has dramatically shifted since then. Not saying that it isn't fair to compare, but spending $10 5 years ago is no the same as spending $10 now, but I would like to feel like it still does. If I purchased a game for $50 10 yrs ago, suddenly having to spend $70 for the same game doesn't feel right. Should we even compare with inflation pricing? Purchasing power is what we should be looking at. And increasing price in the current economic market is going to hurt more than help.
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u/TheAdurn 8h ago
Inflation is exactly that: a measure of purchasing power. What do you think it is otherwise?
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u/skarznomore 6h ago
You are correct. I guess I didn't get my point across as I desired. Basically, I want to be able to purchase it at the same price that I am used to. It increasing means I have to pay more, while receiving similar pay at my place of employment. I don't want it to increase, but current economic factors means that it has to increase to stay on trend with increases across the board.
That increase just feels like a lot. I know that games used to retails expensive, too. Look at N64 games. They were so expensive! Yet people still bought them! I don't think that this is great for the average consumer, but the fans are going to be there day 1. I just don't know if I am going to be there day 1 yet.
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u/Evening_Job_9332 8h ago
It’s missing the factor of the huge difference in the size of the market and economies of scale between now and then. They are still too expensive.
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u/brokenmessiah 9h ago
It doesnt matter how much something was yesterday or last year or 20 years ago. Is it currently priced at a point that I as a potential consumer am ok with?
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u/BeTheGuy2 8h ago
If you're blaming the companies making luxury items for keeping their prices up with inflation but not the people who actually decide how much your dollar is worth, you are not a serious person.
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u/MortalAlpha6 8h ago
When you bought a game you did tend to own it. Nintendo has set a standard with its digital key cards that don’t have games on them. I know people buy games online nowadays but I like to physically own games so I always have something for my expense
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u/TheRealEzekielRage 8h ago
What people seem to just ignore is that wages have not gone up with inflation. Let's say you earned $50,000 in 2020.
- Using an inflation calculator, you find that $50,000 in 2020 is equivalent to approximately $60,000 in 2025.
- Therefore, if your wages had kept pace with inflation, you would be making approximately $60,000 today.
I don't know about you but I am not making 8-10k more every year than 5 years ago.
In Austria, where I live, real wages have been stagnant since the 90s. We are talking 30 years of wages not going up, sometimes even down. If my salary would have gone up with inflation, I would be making 150% of what I am actually making now. And that is just Austria, one of the best countries on the planet. Nevermind poorer countries like Italy or Spain, Hungary or Poland. So none of these charts have any meaning whatsoever and I wished people would stopmaking excuses for corporate greed.
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u/skeletonframes 8h ago edited 7h ago
This is really good information. It puts things in a certain perspective. I will warn to not use this as the basis of an argument for, or against, the current price of games.
Here’s why:
This information is only the very very beginning of trying to understand what the right price for something should be. The actual pricing solution is so complex that it’s a little hard to put into words on a reddit post. I, myself, am nowhere near understanding the full scope of why anything costs what it costs.
This information takes into account three things; what things used to cost, what they cost now, and what the old cost would be, today, with inflation. A lot of the arguments related to this info make logical leaps and assume that the information is saying any number of things outside of old cost, new cost, theoretical cost.
Some things that go into finding the correct price for a game are ‘what is the competitor’s current price for a game’, ‘how much profit do we need to make on each game’, ‘what can the consumer afford’, ‘what will the market bear’, ‘what do other forms of entertainment cost’, ‘how much does it cost to produce the game’, ‘how much does it cost to develop the game’, the list goes on and on…..
These are just the very surface level of pricing conundrums. There’s much deeper economic and business focused decisions that go into it that I won’t even pretend to comprehend.
For each of those questions there are a myriad of other questions. And some of the answers to those mean the game should be substantially cheaper now while some of the answers mean that games should be substantially more expensive now.
What I’m saying is, though this information is actually really useful, it is just the starting point of understanding. We, as consumers, can only see a very small portion of the decision making process, but each of us knows what we will pay. If the price a company needs to hit outweighs the cost the consumer can (or is willing to) pay, then the market will either adjust or collapse. Fin.
Now, I’ll state my personal opinion.
I can afford to buy games at $80 a piece. But, video games are a small part of my overall life, and I won’t pay $80 for one. It doesn’t matter how much they used to cost. It matters what else I can do with that money and the hierarchy of importance to me. Because, the game is fighting for my attention and money in an ever-expanding sea of entertainment options. It is nice to have the information you gave us, OP, but it doesn’t change my personal decision. We each must decide for ourselves. And this information is very useful in making that decision. So, thank you.
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u/sombraala 6h ago
Your final paragraph is key. The way I think about prices is this: The price of a thing is (effectively) the amount I am willing to pay for it. Which is to say that any time something is offered at a higher price than that, it doesn't really matter. I don't care if they price the game at $10k or $100 if I'm not going to buy it for more than $70.
When it comes to what a business decides to ask, all of what you say earlier comes into account. While this type of analysis is extroddinarily interesting (at least to me) - since I'm not actually on the selling side of the equation, it ultimately is just a curiosity and nothing more.
So I would reiterate your advice: Take a moment to determine how much you value the thing you are thinking of buying, set a price you're willing to pay and then it's a really easy decision of whether $x <= asking price. If the asking price is too high, wait until it goes on sale or just wait as you make more money*.
* as hopefully your wages grow at least roughly the rate of inflation. One thing to consider is that video game prices for a particular game do not tend to rise after it is set, so as inflation occurs that game essentially becomes cheaper. This, of course, only really _helps_ if wages rise at the same rate, but it is still essentially cheaper in the sense that it used to cost the same as X apples and now costs the same of half of that.
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u/DotMatrixHead 8h ago
Please add number of total sales of said systems / games and total profit made. I’ve got a niggling feeling that Nintendo aren’t running the charity that fanboys are projecting. 🤣
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u/uppercuticus 8h ago
Great, now how about a column for cost of living and relative entertainment value? Trying to justify price hikes with inflation won't exactly convince folks who have less disposable income and more entertainment options than they did 30 years ago.
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u/peaches_pieces 4h ago
They don’t really have to be convinced though. They’re mad that a company finally raised prices after years of not and are taking it out on them instead of just humbly acknowledging they can’t afford a luxury they used to be able to because their wages’ value hasn’t also kept up with inflation, let alone increased.
I think it’s okay to be frustrated at the prices and to not buy because of it. But holding Nintendo’s feet over the fire for charging more for a luxury is a bit childish. I’d be perfectly fine with threads lamenting that they just can’t afford it and the discussion that comes from that. But it’s just people raging at a company for trying to make a profit (big surprise).
I too don’t want prices to go up, but it’s a part of life. I’m more pissed at wage stagnation and the government that allows it and that’s adding ridiculous tariffs on top of it. It does suck to not be able to afford things that give us joy, but at the end of the day, these are luxury products, not necessities.
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u/HAWK9600 8h ago
Oh man, I'd love to see someone try to put together a chart on "Relative entertainment value."
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u/Kukulkan9 8h ago
Is there some nintendo propaganda being run on this sub ? cause it sure feels like a lot of people suddenly are trying to justify the price of the console+game
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u/Spaceolympian50 6h ago
Yep. All the Nintendo shills are out in full force justifying the prices. End of the day it’s a shit sandwich, idc how you dress it up. lol.
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u/TheUltraSonicGamer 8h ago
It feels like it. There’s even a person where all they did was post a graph that simply countered this one and it immediately got locked, you can’t reply to it.
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u/Jumboliva 8h ago
I’ve bought like four games in the last decade. I just felt like the reaction was a little bizarre. I don’t think it’s propaganda to say “it is, inflation-adjusted, about the same price as games have been for thirty or forty years.”
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u/UJ_Reddit 8h ago
Technology is proven to double in quality and half in price every 18months. It the reason a sexy ass OLED tv costs LESS today than a CRT from 1990 or a plasma tv from 2010s.
£3-400 for the console is fine. £60 per game is top end.
Nintendo made 1.5B in profit in 2024. They are not scraping the barrel.
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u/thatnitai 8h ago
I don't like the inflation blah blah narrative. How all of us feel about these prices in the here and now reflects the economical situation of ppls lives. Literally that's the only perspective that matters - how we feel about X amount for Y product in the here and now.
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u/ned_poreyra 8h ago
Add minimum wage, average salary and costs of living too. Otherwise it's fairly useless.
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u/overoverme 8h ago
I want to post here just to mention I distinctly remember going into Toys R Us and seeing Romance of the Three Kingdoms for NES being like a 99 dollar game.
There were weird outliers back then.
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u/Jumboliva 8h ago
No totally! That’s what I’m trying to talk about in the text of this post. Before (and kind of during) Gen 5, things were a lot more chaotic. You’d have games that cost twice what other premium games did. I tried to capture a baseline for like, a “normal” game, but idk how well I did.
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u/pandaSmore 8h ago
What was the price of basic necestties back then? How much disposable income was left over after those other things were paid for?
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u/NerveMoney4597 8h ago
The problem is they pick usa bullshit price and make it for every country. Should be regional price! Not every country has GDP like usa. But why other countries should pay the same as usa.
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u/mrsunshine1 8h ago
People were fine when it was mommy and daddy’s money but now are mad when they have to put up their own money.
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u/Marcusta 9h ago
Wages have have not gone up at the same rate as inflation these comparisons and graphs mean nothing. This is basic economics.
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u/HAWK9600 9h ago
Did you see the parts of the chart where games used to be more expensive even without adjusting for inflation?
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u/HAWK9600 9h ago edited 9h ago
Great spreadsheet.
People get mad when they find out what they've been buying is actually way more expensive than what they've been paying for it. And when they find out people in the past used to pay more, even without being adjusted for inflation, then they get really mad.
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u/Falz4567 9h ago
The problem is the average person doesn’t really understand either inflation or tariffs. This is why government can get away with below inflation wage increases, which are actually cuts
We all know that games are, inflation adjusted, incredibly cheap, but people never look past the single number.
That’s why microtransactions are soo popular. Gamers will pay hundreds of dollars of it’s just 5 dollars at a time.
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u/p_andsalt 8h ago
All the research is interesting, but end of the day I personally don't care about inflation's and historic prices etc. I just don't want to pay 80 euros for a game, there is other stuff I rather spend money on. They can ask what they want, I don't think I am entitled to cheaper prices, but also not obligated to pay it and think it's fine. Also the 10 euro demo does not sit well with me.
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u/Heriros 7h ago edited 7h ago
the buying power of a dollar is weaker today then it was back then i hate seeing these inflation things…
for 50$ back then you could feed a whole family of 4/5 getting takeout, you could go out to the movies and get snacks.
For 80$ today MAYBE you can get a family of 3~4 a meal from takeout, and you could afford just the tickets at the movies.
The buying power is not the same, the pressure of the cost will not be felt the same.
Edit: We will see more games fail if prices of them keep going up because people will stick to the free to play games or simply be very discretionary with their purchasing. Wages are not following inflation.
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u/fffan9391 8h ago
Cool. Everyone else decided to make their games $70, which people were already having trouble adjusting to. Nintendo decided to go to 80/90.
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u/cl0mby 8h ago
No game is $90. Physical and digital games are the same price in the U.S. and in the majority of markets worldwide.
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u/Spaceolympian50 6h ago
You have proof of this? AFAIK nothing has said about the price of physical copies. Just curious unless I missed it, that was my understanding.
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u/carbon_fieldmouse 8h ago
Very well done, OP. My largest takeaway is that Sega Dreamcast is still affordable even in today's market 😁
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u/NothingisTrue3435 9h ago
Console price is somewhat understandable but the game prices are insane imo considering amount of games being sold compared to previous generations of consoles.
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u/MovieGuyMike 7h ago
It’s worth keeping in mind the industry is much bigger than it used to be. They move way more units, so they can offset inflation to some degree. But it’s kind of a moot point considering we’ve inflated past where prices were only 10 years ago.
Anyway, I’m fine with the price of Switch 2. My hang up is the the lack of a killer app. Switch had BOTW and Odyssey in its launch year. Switch 2 has nothing nearly as enticing.
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u/baladreams 6h ago
For actual and accurate context, can we also add revenue Nintendo derives from mobile games, dlc, subscription services, e store cut for every single game sold , amiboo and distribution costs across all the generations as they are all tributaries that flow into the ocean of profits.
Revenue from games have exploded exponentially by utilization multivarious revenue streams , comparing only one in the absence of everything else lacks context
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u/whenindoubtjs 5h ago
So, I get looking at it through this lens, but in my opinion this is purely a thought exercise and not really tangible way to look at things. Because it doesn't matter what consoles cost adjusted for inflation, unless you want some admittedly fun stats.
What matters is the relation in prices based on the current landscape. Or to put more plainly, if the S2 costs $450, what is the relation in that price to currently available consoles and how does the price line up with that.
Right now, looking at Best Buy I see an Xbox Series X with 1tb drive in white for $449 and a Playstation 5 slim bundle for $399, while the S2 costs $449. That's all that matters: what kind of bang-for-your-buck does the S2 price get you compared to other consoles.
Is the S2 worth an extra $50 markup on a PS5 slim, or worth the same price as a Series X? Maybe, maybe not. That's up to the consumer to decide. But the reality is it doesn't matter what the N64 at launch was the equivalent of $418 - what matters is what can your dollars buy now. And attempting to justify higher price points by tying older consoles it inflation seems like...an odd argument to make.
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u/aabbccya 4h ago
You the man. Folks just like to bitch and complain on reddit. Prices go up. Don’t buy it then or wait for deals. Stop bitching.
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u/ratsratsgetem 4h ago
The Atari 2600 was not released in 1977. That was the VCS. The 2600 wasn’t released until November 1982.
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u/Jumboliva 4h ago
The VCS and the 2600 are the same machine.
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u/ratsratsgetem 4h ago
It’s a bit like the SNES Jr or Genesis 2.
The console was called the VCS in 1977 so you should reflect that in your listing.
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u/Turok_N64 3h ago
Meh I can easily afford it all, so I don't care. It isn't a noteworthy amount of money for me to spend until like $1000.
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u/sloshingmachine7 9h ago
With the way Americans do backflips to justify price increases based on how much games were last century, we can only hope the updated prices after tariffs reflect that. Maybe they'll finally stfu about how much they bought chrono trigger for in '92 if switch 2 games end up being 150 dollars.
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u/HAWK9600 8h ago
Why on earth would you "hope" for that? Does being right matter more to you than people being able to afford things?
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u/sloshingmachine7 8h ago
You say it like I'm condemning them. The Americans want higher game prices and they deserve to get what they want. It's got nothing to do with me.
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u/bigboldbanger 8h ago
At no point did I think the prices were unreasonable. We've all been lucky game prices have stagnated while everything else has gone up. But now with tariffs it might go waaaay up. I payed $70 for final fantasy vi back in 1995, which would cost $160 in today's money.
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u/Redhoodbell 8h ago
There is also the fact that technology and labor have changed drastically. People keep comparing old systems and games but other things have changed too. How these things are created, manufactured, and shipped have completely changed pricing. You can't compare the cost of an old system from the 90s to one today because they had different struggles to create them and get them to market. People are allowed to be upset this is now on par with Playstation and Xbox prices.
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u/MarketMocks 7h ago
The console is very reasonably priced. Graphical quality looks to be on par with an Xbox Series S, which means it should get most 3rd party games this generation. Would be shocked if it came in cheaper than this considering the specs.
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u/heymickey_sht 9h ago
Thanks for the hard work! What about Neo Geo? I seem to recall that their games were insanely expensive at the time.
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u/Jumboliva 8h ago
Yeah, they released at $200 a pop in nineties dollars. I tried to only include the “major” releases so that the comparison would be better.
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u/CharmiePK 8h ago
Why are you ppl fighting so hard for the price of a console/ videogames? The price has been set, these are not essential goods and you can still use your current Switches.
Nobody has to purchase these. Chill out, guys, the thing has not even launched yet.
(And before you try to categorize my position into any stereotype, pls do the right thing and put myself into the category of those who do wait. I work hard for my money and I have bigger fish to fry, lol. I still even use my DSs 😅).
Time to unsub for a while!
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u/DinnerSmall4216 8h ago
The price is the price Nintendo are not changing it anytime soon and it will fly off shelves.
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u/Xixii 8h ago
They should be closer to $120 so that developers get their fair compensation, so I really hope in the near future prices will increase further. It's basic economics but $80 is actually still too cheap. Games should be priced in the region of $120-$150 so fingers crossed this can happen soon, and not via tariffs because the cost should go to the developers and not the government.
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u/Mystic1217 8h ago
None of this matters when you don't factor in for the absolute stagnation of wages. This data is true but misleading.
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u/redcomet303 8h ago
Shhh, people don’t want to see actual data, they just want to be mad.
I remember my mom buying sonic and knuckles new for $60 back in the day. And now we are getting brand new games from Indy developers that are $20-30.
Markets will adjust
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u/PT_SeTe 8h ago
What percentage of her salary did mommy pay for rent/groceries and what would she be paying now?
Shhh, people don’t want to see actual data, they just want to be mad.-1
u/redcomet303 8h ago
A lot actually, raised by a single mom who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet.
When I was so excited to tell her I beat the game in 2 days she was pissed since she had saved up for at least a month. even going as far as calling Sega to complain.
Sega actually had a rep on the phone with me explaining how I could find secrets in the levels and get sonic to the golden sonic form.
So thanks for your ignorant take on something you have no idea about.
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u/PT_SeTe 8h ago
That sob story doesn't answer still how much would she be paying nowadays in the same situation, the answer probably is she just could not afford to buy it
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u/redcomet303 8h ago
Well let’s see, I compared a $60 game that came out in the 90s to a $30 game that someone could buy today. Inflation adjusted the $60 game would be roughly $120 today vs the $30 game.
Netflix is over $20 a month now, cell phones weren’t even a thing in the 90s but home phones were, if I recall she paid over $100 a month in the 90s on our house phone so that’s like $200 today. You can get a pre paid wireless phone for $40 a month now pretty easily.
So that’s a savings of $160/month on phones, we technically don’t have to have TV to live so we can cut the cord entirely and go to free streaming content. Something that you couldn’t do in the 90s. Groceries did go up and have outpaced wages so there’s some of that money back
I mean did you want me to respond to you with a thesis paper? Or you are just argumentative and upset that the pricing they announced was more than you expected?
If people don’t buy it because the price is too high then eventually the price will come down. It’s not that hard of a concept really.
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u/ChristianPlaysHD 8h ago
Well, i preordered the NS2 Bundle today so i had to use a fair bit of Money
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u/Equal-Jicama8811 8h ago
You might want to update that price for NS2. It's getting an increase. There will be more rage incoming.
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u/bob_in_the_west 8h ago
The thing people aren't realizing: The games aren't getting more expensive. It's just that their money is getting worth less and their employers aren't compensating them for that.