| prayformojo said:
You're forgetting something critical...perception. No one cares about infaltion. They see a price, and put value on that price. When I had a PS1 back in it's heyday, I bought games for $40.00 full price. Then when PS2 launched, it jumped to $50.00. Then, when PS3 dropped, it was now $60.00. Consoles went from $200.00-$300.00 at launch to freakin' $400.00-$600.00! People see these "numbers" and associate what they want. For the average consumer, when you see $200.00, it will always look better than $400.00 no matter HOW much inflation has taken place. It's basic human psychology. |
It depends on the willingness to pay of the consumer. (This is how a demand curve is derived.) If somebody made $10,000 to live off of and play video games in 1991, and now they make $40,000 (after raising their market value in labor by expanding their skillset), and if we are to assume that inflation isn't very lop-sided in which increased prices of normal goods have cut into the ability to purchase luxury goods, then that person, regardless of the number, will be willing to pay the $400 vs. the $200, just because they have more money to do so relative to the price. This is a concept called elasticity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics)
If there is any reason for video game prices to go down it is because they have more competition in the luxury good market (smartphones, tablets, cheaper computers, etc, etc.) However, since their brands are strong, and video-game consoles have become a staple luxury good for the enthusiast gamer (who are an inelastic consumer base), this won't happen for a little bit more. Likely video game consoles will merge with standard purpose computers, forming a spectrum from closed platforms to open platform computing/gaming, and overall merging into one market. This has been the trend because gaming PC's have become cheaper while maintaining a plethora of more features.
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