Comparison of 1996 game and console prices to today.

[Tamron]

Farsala said:
And that is without purchasing power. Inflation went up, but also people do not make as much.

Memory cards also add to a consoles price in PS1s case. Need at least two imo. Interesting that controllers got so much more expensive compared with games. 25----->60. vs games 40-60------->50-60.

A lot of the controller price increase is down to complexity, old controllers were just a pcb with either no controller IC at all (direct wired to plug) or a simple cheap PIC controller doing the job, every button was a rubber gated switch.

Now we have analog sticks, complex charging/IC components, connectors, wireless functionality, batteries, variable resistors, motion sensors and so on.

The factories that produce them also now have to comply to stricter standards such as RoHS that were not mandated until 2003.