| Tamron said: Since people tend to look back at previous generations and point to the prices being much cheaper, let's be accurate.
Console price in 1996: $199.99 Average PS4/WiiU/Xbox One game price today: $59.99
Console price in 1996: $199.99 Average PS4/WiiU/Xbox One game price today: $59.99
Console price in 1996: $129.99
The hardware of today costs a little more, depending on which console you buy ($72 more in 1996, for xbox one and ps4 to be exact) the cheapest, 39.99 games of 1996, are more or less identical in price, to todays day one release date prices. |
OK, a bit of perspective should be put in this:
The PS1 had been on the marked for a little while and the SNES was a bit like the PS3/360 at this point (despite having been launched only 5 years or so before in North America!) which would make the 190$ in line with the prices I see for the most affordable packages of the consoles that are being replaced.
It was possible to find games for 15 - 20$, of 1996, you only needed to wait a little longer, but 16-bit systems had plenty of 20$ oldies but goodies by 1996.
Also, neither the PS1 nor the N64 had any internal storage, so you had to buy at least one memory card with the PS1 (N64 games had battery save, but they each cost a lot more too).
and PC gamers did not have Steam sales!
Still, gaming was amazing back then, maybe it's because we had less access to it and the news updates came once a month in the form of EGM (it was probably already fading by 1996).
Essay Pro