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[The Take Out Bandit]

I keep seeing a bunch of Chicken Little style running and screaming about price increases next generation, but having lived through the death of Atari (99¢ games at Revco was the fucking bomb!), and the coming of Nintendo (How do you think they really amassed that big ass bank roll?); it gives one perspective.

I consider this generation, in addition to portions of the previous, something of a Golden Age of console game software pricing. Sure next generation may change an aspect of that, but it's still going to be better than what most here commonly refer to as "the good old days."

I'm interested because I know we were getting ass raped for way more than $55-60 back in the day. I recall paying $75+tax for SF2 when it debuted on the SNES, and I still remember copies of PS4 sitting unsold at the Software Etc. I worked at priced at $99.99.

Is there any sort of resource on-line that has game pricing through history? Perhaps a FAQ even.

Thanks.

 

[truffleshuffle83]

i know that i have a bunch of sealed nes games from like 89-92 with price stickers at $59.99. thats like $90 of todays money. thats absolutly ridiculous that i made my parents spend that much money on games like predator and other nes crap

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Yeah, it's crazy.

I recall the days before working in which your games were presents. You would get two a year, three or four if you were really lucky. I don't represent the rich folk class.

The cheapest NES game I recall was Stinger for $19.99. Which seemed to be indicative of pricing practices back then, a game had to be really unpopular for any retailer to offer it for anything below $50. Going into TrU or EB and looking at game prices was childhood masochism.

It's a good thing the market has expanded, prices have dropped, and more places are doing sales and carrying used games. I'm still soiling my underpants at the crazy deal I got for my foster brother for Christmas abusing the EB Black Friday sale. It's nuts.

 

[truffleshuffle83]

unfortuanatly i was spoiled an my parents bought me nes games like they were nothing id get a few for easter and pretty much one every holiday, or just for getting good grades etc., then like 5-6 for christmas and like 3 for my bday. the games are soo terrible in comparison to todays standards and i feel like crap for making them spend that much know nowing the value of a dollar and how one game was almost = to two games by todays dollar

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Haha. . . well don't feel bad, I played the Hell out of Smurfs on the Colecovision. Jesus, did I play the shit out of that game. :X

Looking back, I can safely say I had more fun playing all the arcade derivatives (Defender clones, Space Invader clones, etc.) on my old man's Astrocade and then stuff on my Colecovision than I did with the NES. The Genesis had a lot of stuff I enjoyed as well.

The worst part was really looking forward to a game, getting it as a gift, and it sucking. Oh. . . the pain.

 

[Pachinko]

I had a similar situation with Takeout bandit. I had enough reletives that I'd get maybe 4 games in an entire year. When I was given a NES it was technically mine but also kind of a gift for my uncle to use as well. Got Mario / Duckhunt and Punchout, for the next few years I'd generally recieve a single game for my birthday and 1 or 2 games at christmas, basically if I asked for a game chances are I'd allready played the bejeezus out of it with rentals so I never needed to worry if it sucked back then. Nowadays it's kind of funny throwing 60 bucks away on a new game every month or so considering how special each game was back then.


2 things have happened to make games much cheaper, firstly the market has increased every year so more copies are sold and cheaper prices work, secondly and more importantly every new home system nowadays uses cheap discs for their formats. Discs that cost 2 bucks or less to make as opposed to cartridges of yonder ancient times that cost 10-20 dollars to manufacture. Sony also cut liscensing fees compared to Nintendo and Sega and eventually both have followed suit somewhat , so simply manufacturing a game and getting official approval to make it costs less thenhalf what it did 13 years ago during the 16 bit heyday.


The only thing that doesn't quite work, with inflation games should technically still be worth 10-20 dollars more then they currently are... so perhaps it is a smart move to price games at 60 USD , gives them room to drop if they fail to sell well.

I mean shit, in canada games were selling for 80-90 bucks a pop until the american dollar dropped in the past year now we pay only a little more then you guys do. 10 dollars basically.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I'm almost 100% certain that Stinger started out at full price and dropped later on. I remember buying that and Mighty Bomb Jack from a Kay-Bee about a year after they had been released.

 

[VALIS]

I keep seeing a bunch of Chicken Little style running and screaming about price increases next generation, but having lived through the death of Atari (99¢ games at Revco was the fucking bomb!), and the coming of Nintendo (How do you think they really amassed that big ass bank roll?); it gives one perspective.

I consider this generation, in addition to portions of the previous, something of a Golden Age of console game software pricing. Sure next generation may change an aspect of that, but it's still going to be better than what most here commonly refer to as "the good old days."

I'm interested because I know we were getting ass raped for way more than $55-60 back in the day. I recall paying $75+tax for SF2 when it debuted on the SNES, and I still remember copies of PS4 sitting unsold at the Software Etc. I worked at priced at $99.99.

You're right on all counts. But what do you expect? Probably 75% of this board is compirsed of histrionic young twits who whine about anything and everything. Game prices have never been better than they are now. Especially the last few years now that more and more publishers are releasing games at $30 and $20 or discounting from $50 relatively quickly. And, yeah, I remember paying $80 for both SFII and SNES Zelda when they first came out. Hell, wasn't Ocarina $80 as well? $60 at least.

From what I remember...

New Atari 2600/5200/Intellivision/Colecovision games were generally $50. Of course, there were price cuts for ones that weren't selling. I think Odyssey2 games were cheaper (except for the deluxe LotR game, which I remember being $70), but they had to be because they sucked.

I don't really remember how much new NES games went for, despite being in High School at the time and buying plenty of those games myself. $50? $60? I just can't remember, no doubt partly due to my #1 expenditure after NES games being pot.

SNES and Genesis games were from $50 to $80. You'd even see dickholes like BRE Software advertising in EGM and selling SNES and Genesis games for $100.

Early CD games like Sega CD, 3DO and TG-CD were usually $50 with some exceptions. I want to say Sega CD games were usually $60...?

Now figure in inflation to really get the point across.

 

[PC Gaijin]

I remember seeing NES games at $50, $55, and $60 price points. Early on Turbografx-CD games were $60, then dropped to $50. Early Turbochip games were either $50, $60, or $70 depending on the mem size (2, 3, and 4 megabits respectively).

 

[goodcow]

I used to sell oranges out of a cooler at the beach for $1 each when I was in elementary school to pay for my games while my dad just tanned.

 

[jadehorizon1]

Hell, wasn't Ocarina $80 as well? $60 at least.

Actually I think all new Nintendo published N64 games were $59.99

I remember the day i picked up a N64 I wanted Wayne Gretzeky Hockey ... then I saw it for $79.99!!!! =O


Who remembers the first release of Virtua Racing at $129.99? :lol must have been 93 or so

 

[gamergirly]

Actually I think all new Nintendo published N64 games were $59.99

I remember the day i picked up a N64 I wanted Wayne Gretzeky Hockey ... then I saw it for $79.99!!!! =O


Who remembers the first release of Virtua Racing at $129.99? :lol must have been 93 or so

I picked up Ocarina of Time a few days after it was released. 59.95 at Gamestop, etc. and 49.95 at Toy's'R'Us

 

[DDayton]

Well, N64 games were generally $60 (or $70 for 3rd party titles), GB/GBC games seemed to stay at $30 for as long as I can remember...

It's time to consult ANCIENT GAMING MAGAZINES! We just have to find some...

 

[Nintendo Ate My Children]

Actually I think all new Nintendo published N64 games were $59.99

That was only when the system first came out. Later, Nintendo published games were mostly $49.99, except for higher meg games like Perfect Dark and the two Zeldas, which were $59.99. Overall, by the middle of the N64's lifespan, it was pretty much third party games = $59.99, and 1st party games = $49.99.

People's memory of the N64 hardware and software pricing is so often fucked up. The N64 didn't cost $250 when it came out, and the games weren't (always) $80 bucks.

 

[Jonnyram]

FFVI (and a lot of other SNES games), cost 11400 yen when it first came out in Japan. That would be $100 by today's exchange rate.

 

[djtiesto]

I remember 40-50 bucks for NES games, 50-75 for Genesis, 60-80 for SNES... Funcoland selling "cheap" used games was a godsend when I was in middle school. I was a pretty smart consumer, I would rent a lot of games in the NES era and only buy the ones I really liked. And I always read Nintendo Power and placed a lot of faith in their reviews... Well they hardly ever steered me wrong