Hey anyone know the answer to this?

I live in Europe, and here your typical Wii-game will cost you about 50 Euros. That's an okay price if you ask me (at least for good games.. :p), as I remember paying 60 Euros for GameCube games.

But still, over in the USA, they cost only 50 DOLLARS. Which is about 35 Euros! The other way around, 50 Euros is about 70 Dollars! That's quite a descrepancy! Where's this coming from? Sure there's exchange rates and all, but surely that wouldn't account for so much?

As for the console itself, if they were to sell it in the USA for the same price they do in Europe, a quick calculation puts the price for a Wii at 360 (!) Euros! Or about 175 (!!) Euros the other way around. 

I dunno about Xbox360 and PS3, as I only own a Wii, but I reckon they might be seeing the same situation.

 Any thoughts on this? 

that is also true for cars, electronics and almost every good you can think of... our salaries are lower than US and yet we we have to pay more for the same things...honestly i don't know why

well it is the exchange rate i think..

well many years ago games were here in the netherlands about 130 gulden ( what is about 60 euro's )
so im glad they did not get anymore expensive

why is the euro so expensive compared to the dollar?

during gamecube tims, euro was quite wek (in the beginning) and hence the higher price.

Yeah well, like I said, exchange rates, okay.. but they can't account for THAT much? Can they?

And heh, yeah, I'm Dutch too and I remember those times.. in the beginning of the N64's life games sold for 120 guilders, then when OOT came out it was raised to like 140, and I remember paying 180 guilders for Conker's Bad Fur Day.. :p Ah, good times.

there are varous reasons:

1.) US prices always are without VAT (in the Netherlands for instance you have 19% VAT or whatever it's called - that's already included into your prices) - americans have to pay the VAT at the counter though (but it's considerably lower than ower european VATs)

2.) the EU demands a high duty for technical devices

3.) most prices were made with an exchangerate of 1.3$ : 1€ in mind and won't be adjusted by daily fluctuations of exchange rates .. although the € has been quite strong for a while now

i remember buying command & conquer of the n64 130 gulden, just like goldeneye :)

anyway  1 euro was at start worth 1,13 dollar or so?

now it is almost worth 1,50 dollar

What about pounds? Games cost £40 - that's over $80!

Maybe taxes.

Actually, when the Euro was still knew, there was a time when the dollar was worth slightly more than the Euro.