Games are a luxury. Not all of us can afford to throw $50 to $60 every time a major publisher releases a game that we like. So imagine our surprise when developers and big companies such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all started to bump the prices of their major triple-A games up to $70. That’s a big dent in other people’s pockets.
While debates over this price increase are ongoing, we’d like to think is it really such an expensive time to be a gamer? Are these prices the most expensive ones we had in the entire history of the world? Well, according to Dual Shockers’ Robert Zak: not really. This is because, well, inflation exists.
After some calculations, Zak pointed out that the variation in prices for major N64 and PS1 games tend to come in the $60 to $70 range, which is around $113 to $132 if adjusted to today’s prices. Back in the day, games had smaller development teams and were made on even smaller budgets. Their price range wasn’t really a bargain for fans around that time, too. If we compare prices by today’s standards, the newest triple-A games of today actually cost less than past-generation titles.
However, we also need to consider while this is numerically true, there are other factors that also dictate why current game prices are a bit difficult for players today. This includes the fact that the price of regular daily essentials creeps up just in time the price hike on games did, and it feels like a knife being twisted on us. Life’s harder today, man.
Image credit: Nintendo