Today's Game Consoles Are Historically Overpriced (arstechnica.com) 66
ArsTechnica: Today's video game consoles are hundreds of dollars more expensive than you'd expect based on historic pricing trends. That's according to an Ars Technica analysis of decades of pricing data and price-cut timing across dozens of major US console releases.
The overall direction of this trend has been apparent to industry watchers for a while now. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have failed to cut their console prices in recent years and have instead been increasing the nominal MSRP for many current consoles in the past six months.
But when you crunch the numbers, it's pretty incredible just how much today's console prices defy historic expectations, even when you account for higher-than-normal inflation in recent years. If today's consoles were seeing anything like what used to be standard price cuts over time, we could be paying around $200 today for pricey systems like the Switch OLED, PS5 Digital Edition, and Xbox Series S.
The overall direction of this trend has been apparent to industry watchers for a while now. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have failed to cut their console prices in recent years and have instead been increasing the nominal MSRP for many current consoles in the past six months.
But when you crunch the numbers, it's pretty incredible just how much today's console prices defy historic expectations, even when you account for higher-than-normal inflation in recent years. If today's consoles were seeing anything like what used to be standard price cuts over time, we could be paying around $200 today for pricey systems like the Switch OLED, PS5 Digital Edition, and Xbox Series S.
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Today's consoles are bespoke PC hardware, and in the context of equivalent hardware- they're really cheap.
I think the problem is that "console" gaming has changed. A lot.
A modern console needs to compete with a PC.
The Nintendo did not compete with contemporary PCs.
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The Nintendo did not compete with contemporary PCs.
The NES had hardware sprites, 64-color graphics, and 5 sound channels, at a time when PCs had a monophonic beeping internal speaker, and no graphics mode with more than 16 colors.
Arcade games were still very much a thing, because no home system (except the Amiga, arguably) could match their graphics and sound.
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at a time when PCs had a monophonic beeping internal speaker
You mean IBM-compatibles. I was not referring to IBM-compatibles ;)
The moniker "PC" to refer to an "x86 IBM-compatible" came about in the 90s.
In the 80s, we had Amigas, Commodores, Apples, Ataris, etc, etc, etc.
But even if we're talking about x86 IBM compatibles, contemporarily with the NES existed EGA and VGA graphics.
Hardware sprites are more of a concern when your CPU is a 1.8Mhz 8-bit 6502, than when it's a 16 or 32-bit 20+Mhz x86.
As far as sound goes on the IBM-compatibles- I'll give you that.
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2) Do you think the NES ceased to exist when powerful personal computers came onto the market?
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It was designed to be a toy, which is why it had a weak CPU, and weak graphics hardware hyperfocused on moving small low-color-count sprites around on the screen.
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The moniker "PC" to refer to an "x86 IBM-compatible" came about in the 90s.
Definitely not. It was in wide use in 1983.
Here is PC Magazine: The Magazine for IBM Compatibles [archive.org], its actual name, from November 1983.
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Just to throw in my few cents on the original topic: I think the grandparent is right. As consoles become more and more similar to PCs, opportunities to cut costs diminish. This was one of the problems with the Xbox 1 (not the Xbone): it was almost entirely off-the-shelf PC parts, and so cost cutting was a very expensive affair
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You've vastly oversold that graphics hardware, lol
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Re:Just consoles? (Score:5, Informative)
Tariffs are TAXES. Trump's tariffs are straight-up, old-fashioned consumption taxes on the American consumer. Prices are higher because extra money is coming right out of Joe Mainstreet's pocket and into Uncle Sam's wallet.
General inflation is also playing a role, which is partly because of general western economic conditions, but partly it's directly Trump's fault. For some reason, the rest of the world is finding this guy to be unreliable, and they're demanding higher interest rates when they loan us money.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with unregulated capitalism. These tariffs really don't have anything at all to do with regulation, and everything to do with Trump a) punishing people he doesn't like at the moment and b) because he can.
Well, he has to pay for the tax cuts for his rich supporters in the OBBB somehow, so he'll just soak the general populace for it. Masking it as a tariff on imports that 'encourage local companies to make replacement products cheaper' throws a feel-good camouflage net over the problems of there likely not being any local manufacturers for some products, and that standing up new production lines is expensive and time-consuming -- but, hey, we're really sticking it to the Chinese... and the Canadians... and th
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Prices are higher because extra money is coming right out of Joe Mainstreet's pocket and into Uncle Sam's wallet.
And the stupidest thing is that while everyone is talking about tariffs and their impact on the economy, nobody is asking what is happening to all that new tax revenue and where it is going.
Nope. (Score:2)
No the article is correct (Score:2)
The controllers are all so much less durable but that's besides the point. Mostly because they cheap out and refuse to use hall effect joysticks.
Consoles are not being sold at a loss right now. Most estimates have been pulling in a small profit with the switch pulling in a large prof
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Consoles are not being sold at a loss right now.
Not sure I buy that. Have anything to back it up?
PC-equivalent hardware to a PS5 would go for between 2-3x the price of a PS5. (Remember- PS5 is just a PC)
I've been surprised that they actually keep making the damn things.
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I think perhaps your next stop after Reddit should be an online English class.
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They're paying sub-wholesale prices for the hardware, so if an equivalent PC costs 2-3x, they could be selling it around the break even point (with the assumption of profit the minute you buy a second controller, a single game, or any other accessory).
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I don't buy it.
It looks like they were- somehow- profitable for a few quarters in 2021, which is impressive. Otherwise no- loss on every unit sold.
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The SNES launched at $472 USD, adjusted for inflation. It also did not include a second controller. The Nintendo Switch 2 costs $449 USD, not $525. I'm not sure where your street price comes from, as the console is currently in stock for MSRP at all major Canadian retailers, and in the US, it's available for immediate shipping at MSRP from Nintendo's own website, so there's no reason that anybody would ever pay more than MSRP.
It's true that the SNES included a pack-in game for that price, and the Switch 2 p
Seriously? (Score:2, Interesting)
Call me a troll if you want, I know you will. But when you look at the per hour basis of these entertainment systems, they seem very cheap to me. Way cheaper than my hobbies at any rate.
I understand the point the article is comparing today's prices to the prices of yesterday. I get that. I I don't disagree. I don't agree either. I just don't know. I'm just saying, compared to "what you get", the stuff seems cheap to me.
The stuff you use with it is cheap too. I mean, I just got a 98" TV for $1000. My god. T
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
My previous TV was a 60" that I paid $1400 for, and that was in 2010 dollars too. So the new TV is WAY cheap.
That's because your new TV rapes your privacy 24/7, which your old TV didn't do.
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What privacy?
Oooh, he's watching YouTube!! Quick! Write that down! YouTube, at 3:05pm!!
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Some of the newer TVs DO require an internet connection.
Exactly: that's why they're cheaper - they demand to be online to do even the most basic things (like, showing static even) so they can continually rape your privacy.
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Maybe. But not all of us have such TVs.
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Then your TV wasn't that "cheap".
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Well, seemed cheap to me. Both in absolute terms and relatively terms.
It was $1080, with tax.
My 60 was $1400.
My old tube TV, which was 32" I think, was around $750, back in the day.
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I only bought a new one because we bought a new house in May, and it has room for a much larger TV than the old house. So, we got a 98" TV. I could justify it because since I'm home-bound now, I watch a lot of TV, which I never did before. I figured, "fuck it, gonna die with a big ass TV".
But you can just plug it in and use it as a monitor, you don't have to connect it to the internet. I have an antenna that gets a bunch of channels, and an AppleTV for apps. It works out pretty well. It's GoogleTV based
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That's because your new TV rapes your privacy 24/7, which your old TV didn't do.
The funny thing is the world has voted with their wallet that they don't care about this. A few Slashdotters hold up this nebulous thing called "privacy" as something that must be absolutely protected. But the reality is nearly all people don't care. It's cheaper, that has a material impact on them. Samsung / LG / Philips knowing that they had a wank while playing an Eyes Wide Shut scene on repeat hasn't had a material impact on them, so convincing people that privacy is important is impossible.
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But you don't have to connect it to the internet and it works fine if you don't. You can just use it as a monitor.
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Well, FWIW, I noticed today that the price on this TV, from the same retailer, has increased by 50%.
It is now $1499 instead of the $999 I paid on May 24th. Ouch!!
https://www.costco.com/.produc... [costco.com]
Intellivision was only $299.95 in 1980 (Score:2)
That's about $1200 today for a game console. So relatively cheap compared to PS5, which doesn't even have a number pad on its controllers.
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It was a joke about how much people were paying for PS5 on ebay for a while. Sorry it fell kind of flat.
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Cost /= price, value = price (Score:1)
It doesn't matter if the components go down in price, or if the cost to manufacture is lower. If it provides value at the price they're offering, people will buy it. Besides, why do you buy a switch? To gain access to the game ecosystem that Nintendo built. You don't pay for a switch for a switch, you pay for a switch to play Zelda, Mario, and Metroid and all the other exclusi
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Obvious... (Score:1)
Tariffs?! So much winning.
Lower profit from game sales? (Score:1)
100 x Better though (Score:2)
... its in the game...
Not really (Score:1)
Hardware got more expensive.
That should be thanked to crypto and AI, both of which have driven GPu prices high. But also moving to more expensive EUV-based litography - and geopolitical situation that shut the door for alternative GPU makers from China (blocked from making chips outside of China).
I sincerely hope that current trend will turn around and Nvidia, AMD etc. get some proper run for their money as soon as Chinese catch up in litography.
If it were like it was back in the good old days.. (Score:2)
The median wage to median house price would be 1:3 instead of 1:6 and growing.
By contrast, a $70 AAA title is the equivalent of spending $35 or less when most of us were kids and AAA games were, bare minimum, $50 (many SNES were $60-$80 for bigger games).
Video game prices are not gouging anyone right now.
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By contrast, a $70 AAA title is the equivalent of spending $35 or less when most of us were kids and AAA games were, bare minimum, $50 (many SNES were $60-$80 for bigger games).
Video game prices are not gouging anyone right now.
And if games were an $80, one-time purchase, nothing-more-to-buy, multiplayer-over-TCP/IP-forever investment, yes, you're right. I have no problem paying even $100 for such a game.
Except most of them are not. There are a handful of exceptions (Elden Ring, Baulder's Gate 3, and so on), but the majority of games are $60-$80 for the standard edition but $100 or more for the deluxe edition, and then there are the season passes, battle passes, in-game purchases (they're not 'micro' anymore...), lootboxes, multip
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The games cost $50 retail, but if you waited a few months you could get it used at GameStop for $40. Then you'd play it and sell it back to them for $20. Net cost only $20.
Today it's all digital downloads that can't be resold. If the price is $70, that's really how much it costs you to play it.
You can't compare prices of digital downloads to discs or cartridges. They aren't the same thing.
Atari 2600 (Score:2)
1977: $190
2024 equivalent: $990
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Panasonic 3DO
1993: $699.99
2025: $1585
I think this might be the winner for "mainstream" consoles. I saved up all of the money I made from my summer full-time job and bought the 3DO and a Connor 500MB hard drive for my computer.
Not a fan of the comparisons (Score:2)
Then you take into account the inflation adjusted cost for those new units, of course they had much more "room" to drop the price.. components probably got much cheaper and production efficiency gained. I use to manage component procurement for mass production, we'd expect our suppliers to get better cost efficiency each year after production began due
They're right, cuts are the key (Score:2)
Price cuts make all the difference. You can' just say "old console launched for X dollars, which adjusting for inflation..." Launch prices were a premium that only enthusiasts accepted to pay. The vast majority of moms and dads held out for the price cuts. But somehow it has become acceptable to pay full price for old tech. Darn kids these days are stupid or what?!
really dumb comparison (Score:2)
My solution: buy the previous generation (Score:2)
I just bought my first Nintendo Switch, $300. To me, it's new. All the games are already there and well-developed, and the prices have dropped because everybody wants the new version. If you don't have to have the latest and greatest, and you want to save money, there a LOT of great stuff out there that's one generation old.
yes (Score:2)
Well, the idea of free enterprise is that the price is set by the market. Apparently, people are willing to pay those prices.
perfect price (Score:2)