Well..

It's actually because today prices have barely changed from 1980, and the quality has skyrocketed. We call some games today "unplayable", but there actually were unplayable games back then. Hell, I remember some old Nintendo games where I was so confused as to what to do. The same shit is not happening right now.

The main problem with console back in the day was that they couldn't even come close to the standards set by PC games or arcades. Arcades back then were magic. The same problem doesn't exist today because the main competitor now is smartphones, yet, at least Sony is working on being able to have the same content and utility.

And the pricing is only a problem because developers and publishers dont make games anymore. They make movies or tech demos or whatever but every product that focuses on visuals more than on gameplay is not a good game in my opinion. Calling this quality is debatable. And handholding is something I see as a negative thing.....

Noone forces devs to make a game that needs a big budget.  Tomb Raider being a failure because it "only sold so many millions and not SOO many millions" shows how stupid the industry is.  There is alot of indie games with small budget that surpass AAA games in quality. The stupid mentality of the big companies makes creating new experiences a risky thing and if someone else creates something new everyone starts a copy marathon. If games would be cheaper to make we would have much more variety. And noone would need to deal with all the crap. Devs would not have such a tight schedule and all the milk-stuff like on disk DLC and horse armor and all the other crap that just exists "because games kept prices since the 80s" would have no reason d'etre.

Most big games are not made by creative people or gamers for gamers anymore but most are made by talented devs under control of some monkey in a suit that wants short term profit and their games are made for easily impressed mainstreamers who love to buy everything someone tells them to buy in a commercial etc.


Btw making movies also got more and more expensive and yet I can buy a bluray for $5 why do games go from 50 to 60? Even tho they are more mainstream than ever?