Cost of video game systems through the years

Cafe Society
1

I was having a discussion with a friend about the somewhat prohibitive cost of today’s video game systems, and I decided it would be interesting to go back and look at the price of systems from the past when they were the hot new toy. I pulled up the LA Times archives and searched for the oldest mention of each item I could find an ad for, and I discovered the following.

  • A March 23, 1980 ad from Broadway selling an Intellivision for $299.95 (comes with a Blackjack/Poker cartridge)

  • A December 16, 1980 ad from Computique selling an Atari 2600 for $139.95 (suggested retail of $199.95)

  • An October 17, 1982 ad from May Co. for an Atari 5200 with a price tag of $249 (Missile Command and Space Invaders for $32.95 apiece)

  • A March 13, 1986 ad from Target for an NES. $139.99. Comes with R.O.B. the Robotic Operating Buddy and the gun for Duckhunt. Super Mario Brothers was on sale for $21.99 from the normal $24.99.

Any requests? Anyone have the time and desire to translate some of these numbers into current day prices?

At least the Wii seems reasonably priced compared to some of these. :slight_smile:

2

For some reason I thought they were cheaper than that. Goes to show what I remember! I guess I should stop bitching at Wii prices and get one.

3

When you factor in inflation, I’m guessing even the PS3 price is comparable to when the earlier systems came out.

4

No doubt - for some reason though, I remember the NES being around $100. Of course I wasn’t buying it, and it was probably way after it came out.

5

Here’s a list of 26 game consoles inflation-adjusted to 2006 dollars.

Of course, the Wii plays games from 6 of the systems on the list via the Virtual Console. That’s, like, $2800 worth of console value. I can’t afford not to have one! :slight_smile:

6

It was; I have definite memories of saving up with my brothers to buy one. But that was a couple years after release.

7

The NES was available at Target for $99.95 in 1988. It came with an SMB/Duck Hunt combo cartridge, 2 controllers, and a Zapper.

I remember vividly standing in Target staring at the display and imagining the conversation I was going to use to convince my parents to buy it:

“Mom, Dad, we should get this!”
“But, aktep, it’s $100. We don’t have $100.”
“So? Just write a check!”

Then I realized the logic was bad and deduced you could only write checks for money you had in the bank. A few months later I was able to convince my folks to get one as a reward for my hard work in 4th grade and my brother’s hard work in 1st grade.

8

I remember games for the Atari 2600 typically cost around US$30-40. That was a serious chunk of change back then, even more so for a 12-year-old. Looking at Amazon now, most of the new releases are in the $20-50 range.

9

According to advertisements reprinted in Ralph Baer’s autobiography Videogames: In The Beginning, the very first home video game system, the Magnavox Odyssey, retailed for $99.95 in 1972. (499.60 in 2007 dollars) By the next year, Magnavox dropped the price to $79. (371.76 in 2007 dollars)

10

That seems consistent - I didn’t have an NES until a while after it came out, of course I am sure I made myself a pest about it (I was born in 1981). When I got one it came in the bundle you described.

11

I remember having to “save” up the $300 that the original PlayStation cost back in 1996. I was 10 years old. My mom put $50 a month or something into a checking account in my name and then I had to be patient and wait until it reached $300, and then we could go get the system and I could write my own check. :cool:

Still have that account, too.

12

I was going to mention the NeoGeo. I remember that thing being every bit as extravagant as the PS3 is today. According to that chart it was twice as extravagant!

Though it seems that games have gotten relatively more expensive, which makes sense when you consider the new business model Sony and Microsoft are going with.

13

And then the games were $200 a pop. Everyone I knew drooled over that thing, but of course nobody had one.

Have they? $40 was pretty much the standard price for a newly-released NES game. Forty 1990 dollars is $63 in 2007. New Xbox 360 releases are $60.

So it would seemto be keeping pace, and is probably even a better deal than old games that didn’t need to have dozens of people on staff to produce high quality video, animations, advanced AI, and everything else modern games are capable of.

14

There was no Target back then, you nutcases. You’re talking about Ames.

15

Unless this is a whoosh or an inside joke I don’t get, you’re mistaken. What I was looking at when I referenced the '86 advertisement was a scanned image of the actual ad. The Target logo and name are both in the ad.

16

Maybe where you live. The Target I’m thinking of has been a Target since it was built in the early 80s.

17

Target was originally Dayton’s until 1962. Ames was a seperate chain which went bankrupt in 2002.

18

Yeah I was just joking around - Target didn’t become well-known in my part of the country until this millennium. To me it seems like Target is this glamorous, NEW department store, so it sounds weird to hear anyone talking about buying an NES from there.

19

To back up pizzabrat, I thought the exact same thing when I saw the Target listing. And also came to the same conclusion - Target is “glamorous and new” to these parts.