Comparison of 1996 game and console prices to today.

[freedquaker]

Tamron said:

freedquaker said:

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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The existance of options, cheaper or otherwise, does not effect the fact that theyre cheaper, it just means the buyer has more options.
I see what you're trying to say, but its not relative, not at all, if you're in the market for a console, you're not in the market for a pc, and if you're in the market for a pc, you're not in it for a console.

How many kids do you know that say to their parents, "i want a wiiu/xbox one/ps4/etc for christmas/birthday", then turn around and say "actually, maybe i'll get a mid range pc"

Conversely, gamers using primarilly PC are more than likely going to have hardware that costs significantly more than a console, and in most cases, said gamers will open both.
And why exactly?, might have something to do with high end grapics cards costing the same as/more than a games console, so to them, the consoles are comparatively cheap.

In my machine I have over 2K worth of GPU's, consoles look dirt cheap to me.

In 1996, if you wanted to play 3D games with high end graphics and innumerable exclusives at a very affordable price, you had no other choice but buying a game console. PCs with equivalent 3D accelerators cost you at least 3 times much, but even then there were not many games that would support those fancy 3D features; and the compatibility in addition to driver issues were a huge heachache. (You needed a $1300 PC vs $300 PSX).

Fast forward to 2014, A PC that gives you a similar experience as consoles would cost you LESS THAN 2X the price of a console, and the number of games with high end graphics available for the PC far exceeds that of consoles, and the compatibility issues of the yore have all gone away thanks to the DIRECT3D and OPEN GL standards. (You need a $600-700 PC vs $400 PS4).

So the PRICE alone is NOT a compelling reason to buy a console anymore. The only major argument in favor of consoles is Convenience and ease of use, that's about it.