I have been wondering for a while now, why the consoles are so more expensive in these countries, where people are significantly less capable of purchasing still today compared to West. I have an idea, but I wanted to know if someone here knows the exact reasons.

I live in Hungary, the pictures are from Szombathely (10th biggest town of Hungary) in an electronical large shop (TV, computers, HIFI, video games, etc...)

To give accurate context :

- Global cost of life in Hungary, considering everything and put into an average, is ~60% of France

- Average salary however is like ~2,5 times lower. Simple math shows immediately that the "local purchasing capacity" for hungarian citizens is still a lot lower than in France, despite a fast economical improvement on the last 10 years.

So In Hungary the costs are :

- PS4 : 367 US$

- PS4 Pro : 489 US$

- Switch : 384 US$

(I just used the Google convertor at the rate of today)

Well, as there is less disposable income available for people, less will buy a console and those who do have less money to spent on games than ppl in the big economies, which results in console hw needing to be pricier to make it profitable to sell it and lower sell-through volumes means shops will want a higher pay-out from selling each individual items > higher prices (> less people will buy - it's a self-reinforcing cycle).

I am sure a 27% Value Added Tax really helps to drive up prices

Ouch, even from a european perspective 27% VAT is a lot. Orban needs his gold plated palace, eh?

Next time I cross Slovakia, I will try to stop in a shop big enough to check and compare.

This is probably a better explanation than mine. I was thinking that because the market is much smaller, they order less quantity so they have a price per console higher, but still the difference is too much for this, and it should be balanced with the lower local cost of storage.

Just import from another Euro country.

Those prices are way higher than they should be. I'd recommend shopping online.

In Hungary the taxes are probably already included in the shown price tags, aren't they?

So a comparison to other European countries probably makes more sense

- PS4 bundle (Uncharted 4/ R&C/ TLoU) = 99999 forint = €311; Amazon.de & Amazon.fr = €299 (without games)

- PS4 Pro = 139999 forint = €435; Amazon.de = €396; Amazon.fr = €399

- Switch = 109999 forint = €342; Amazon.de = €309, Amazon.fr = €292

Germany and France probably have lower shipping and distribution costs than Hungary (direct access to the Atlantic, better infrastructure) and probably get better deals for ordering more devices. They also probably have higher competition between retailers due to a better price transparency between the shops thanks to comparison sites.

Germany has 19% VAT, France has 20% VAT and Hungary has 27% VAT (since 2012), so that already makes up most of the price differences.

Average salary doesn't matter much for prices of luxory items (and yes, entertainment products are luxory items).

Isn't that how prices in shops are versus online? I can tell a little story how I bought my PSP Street in 2012 - I went to one of my local electronics shop to check the PSP out, the price was 170 usd, after that I went home and ordered it in the same shop online for 130 usd LOL. Also while I was there I saw PS3 Slim for crazy price around 600 usd (in 2012 they were under 400 usd online).