Comparison of 1996 game and console prices to today.

[freedquaker]

Tamron said:

freedquaker said:

In 1996 : 50 percentile HH Income : $35 883  (in 2012 dollars, $ 52 289)
In 2012 : 50 percentile HH Income : $52 173

Playstation 1's relative price in 1996 =  299 / 35 883 = 0.833% of income
Playstation 4's relative price in 2013 =  399 / 52 173 = 0.765% of income (approximated with 2012)

And there you have it, the consoles and games now are cheaper than they used to be, while the prices of PC and PC hardware has decreased SIGNIFICANTLY as technology has matured and improved too.

All in all, in the past, things were significantly more expensive than they are now.

But you shouldn't consider things in isolation!

 

Quote from my original post:

....the price levels in the IT sector has been generally decreasing. Computers are (even nominally) cheaper than ever. This goes for PCs, Laptops, Tablets, Smart phones and pretty much everything else EXCEPT GAME CONSOLES. So the RELATIVE price of game consoles have been steadily increasing, which is admittedly because they have been evolving into more capable and PC-like machines.

 In 1996, Playstation cost you $299 while an average laptop cost you north of $1500  (so the console was less 20% of a laptop)

In 2014, Playstation costs you $399 while an average laptop costs you around $600 (giving you about a 70% ratio)

Although the figures above are not precise, in general, console gaming has become RELATIVELY much more expensive over the years. I wanna emphasize the term "RELATIVE" here becuase when people make purchasing decisions, they always make comparisons and evaluate based on the second best alternative. Consoles in the past was particularly common because they were way cheaper. Today this is not a convincing reason anymore; but rather taken over by CONVENIENCE as the biggest reason behind console use as an alternative to PCs.

 ....

In Summary, the game consoles, in real terms, have slightly decreased in price by around 8%, although their relative price has increased up to 4 times as 1996 prices. In plain english, they cost you slightly less now, but much cheaper alternatives have appeared and all of sudden, consoles started to look way more expensive.

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