So....in light of Nintendo's ridiculous prices, which are only going to be made worse by the Trump tariffs, there are a lot of pro corporate...you know what riders out there who are basically defending nintendo and arguing that we should be willing to pay high prices. Their argument is that if we go back to what consoles and games cost back in the good old days, and compared it to today, we would realize that we used to actually pay higher prices. For example, the Nintendo 64 had like $60-80 games back in the 1990s, when in reality, that was like $120-160 today or something. a $200 console costs like $500+ now, etc. etc. We get this too with the cost of PC parts, with people being like "well ackshully, you SHOULD pay more than GPUs than you did in the 2010-2016 era!" and stuff like that.
But, let's be honest, just because things cost more now, doesn't mean that people can afford more stuff. The living standards of people have declined over the years. I know in my own life, my family has made roughly the same amount of money since like the 1990s in real dollars, and I don't think that's uncommon in a lot of eras. if anything, it sounds like the hollowing out of the middle class to me.
I mean, let's go back to like the 1990s. In the 90s, my family made somewhere around $40k a year to my knowledge. Not sure exactly, but that sounds about right. That would amount to around $100k today, which actually sounds like a lot. My dad did HVAC and it was brutal work though, and he was miserable doing it. But it did give me a good childhood and a good life. I guess we were on the higher end of middle class, ya know, right when my UBI stuff would start raising taxes on us. Not super rich but comfortable. And yeah, I got a new console for like $130 (never full price) like a year or two after release when they went on sale, and we'd get games. I'd occasionally get games I knew were full price, but most were discounted. My family has always been on the whole "dont pay full price for stuff, wait for sales" kind of people. Scrimping and saving is how you get ahead. As such, while I might get like 2-4 games for christmas, often on sale, a lot of the time, they'd be like $30-40, only occasionally getting a $60-70 one.
Let's fast forward into the 2000s. my dad is now working a different job in the same field. He quit his old one after he was functionally forced out because he tried to join a union. He had his old one since he started in the 1970s, and ya know, that was the end of that golden era where you could get a job out of high school with a college education and be fine. But then in the 1980s and 1990s as neoliberalism became all the rage, working conditions gradually worsened, with his job being absolutely miserable by the 1990s. And then around 2000, he quit. he took a pay cut, but his next job was pretty easy in comparison. Rather than being a megacorp, it was owned by a small business owner. Pay was lower but things were less stressful. I remember we cut back on things we used to do, like eating out, although our christmases and stuff were still decent. He continued to make somewhere around $40k a year, rising to the 50s and maybe around $60k-ish by the recession.
Game consoles got more expensive, but they also seemed to come out a lot less frequently, I remember getting a PS2 around 2002 for middle school graduation, having used a much cheaper dreamcast before that. I typically only got one console per generation, although the dreamcast's premature death meant that i got 2 for gen 6. Again, probably not launch price. Actually looking it up, there was a $100 price drop (1/3 of the price) when I got it. So it was a $200 console. And games went down to $50, with me often getting them for much less, like, say, $30 on average. Again, never pay full price for anything. Maybe hold off and get older games on sale and get the newer ones later on.
Xbox 360, got that when I graduated high school. Was $400, it was less than a year post launch, but I got 3 games. 2 were old halo games from the OG xbox and were literally like $8 according to the sticker on them. Quake 4 was like $50-60, but yeah. Only got one of those. From there, again, mostly got games on sale, $20-40 is what we typically paid. While occasionally, you get something full price, most of the time, we don't.
Same with handhelds. I got into the game boy late in its life cycle after my dad had a game gear at launch. That one was probably pricey. Game boy was less than $100 by the late 90s. GBA was like $130 or $150 or something in 2001. Got that near launch. Games were $30 for it.
DS, that was $150. Games were $40 max.
Again, stuff was a lot cheaper. Let's talk about this stuff in line with inflation up to this point.
So, got a sega genesis in 1993 for like $130, that's $287 today. So around $300, that's not unreasonable in my mind for a console. Games generally cost around $30 on average I'd say. That's $66 today, so not that insane. Cheaper than mariokart.
N64. Same $130 for that IIRC, got it on sale. In 1997 money, that's $258.
Games were up to $60-70, say a $70 game is $140, that's insane, and you know what? This is why people only had a handful of games. Either way, most games I did get were often closer to $30-40. Let's go with $40, which is about $80 in 1997 money. So again, keeping up with "inflation."
Of course in the 2000s things went down and things were more standardized. Got the dreamcast near launch, after all I was a huge sega fanboy. $200 in 1999 is $383 today, still cheaper than the switch. Got 2 games with it. Assuming $50, which was full price, that's $95, a bit steep, but again, we were making decent money back then. Keep reading to see how things end up going. Also, we rarely paid $50 and those games were like "yeah you're not getting that many at that price." So again, let's assume a median price of actually $30. $57, so closer to $60. Again, because $80 for games, even today, is kind of a lot of money.
Lets go 2001. GBA at launch cost $100, looking it up. I guess the $130 figure was with a $30 game. That's $180 today. Not unreasonable, my latest razer edge handheld cost a little more than that. $30 game, that's $54.
2002. $200 PS2. $354. So as much as some hoped the switch would cost. And again, while games were up to $50, i often got games much cheaper. Like $30.
2004. $150 for DS. That's $253, not much more than the razer edge. I paid like $212.$40 games are $67 today, and again, I often paid $20-30 for them. That's $33-50.
2006. $400 back then was $633 today. A bit eyewatering but not much worse than the XBSX's price of $500. Also keep in mind other consoles. PS3 cost $600 which was $950 today, and was laughed out of the room. Nintendo wii, nintendo using weaker hardware and being more cost sensitive, $395. Still cheaper than the switch.
And again, while games were $60, I rarely if ever paid $60. $20-40 was common. $30 is about normal. That's about $47 today, which makes sense, that's me buying a $70 game with a 33% sale. That should be about $40, but yeah.
So yeah before I continue, let's go back to the story. So, 2008 onward, another big life style change. My dad starts getting laid off, is eventually let go. His small company got bought out by a large company that degraded the working conditions to squeeze every last bit of profit out of people. Laid him off permanently in 2011. Couldnt find a job in field, had to pursue work in another field as a maintenance guy. Goodbye $50-60k, welcome back $40k.
I tried to get a job out of college, but the only crap available paid like $8-10 an hour for 25 hours a week with no benefits. Quite frankly wasnt even worth the effort if you could afford to live without it. After all, that's only $11700. This is the difference between older gens and younger ones. Younger ones graduate into this economy and this is what greeted us. I was hoping to make at least $30k outside of school. I couldnt even get that. It was a joke.
This continued for most of the 2010s, welcome to the new normal.
Shortly before 2020 and COVID, my dad retired in 2019. Now on social security, goodbye say, $45k, hello $36k. Which is now like $40k.
Okay so...as you can see, 30 years, still around $40k, back in the 1990s, was a respectable above average middle class income. In the 2000s, was pretty much THE average. In the 2010s, slightly below average, but still respectable. And now we're in the 2020s...
And actually, this is still average in my area. Median household income is actually $45k. Used to be like $30k, but yeah. Again, we're kinda poor. Prosperity in america isnt evenly distributed. Some areas have it really well, others don't. It's the war on normal people at work. For some, big cities and the like, you're making BANK. Others, like my area, you're basically poor AF. The prosperity leaves, your living standards are hollowing out, and you manage to tread water for a while, but every decade, it gets a little worse, a little worse. And now we got a cost of living crisis in the 2020s and it's pushing us over the edge. So with that said, let's go back to the gaming examples.
So, I graduate college in 2010. This is at the peak of our income in raw dollars, and my parents wanna do something really special for me. So I get a gaming PC. It cost $1100. Now, people might think that's WAY more expensive than the other stuff, and it is, BUT, let's look at the cost in context. Since 1999, we've bought PCs every 3-5 years. They cost $600. Consoles cost, on average, about $400 for a really butt kicking graphics powerhouse one like the xbox 360. Nintendo actually stayed cheaper, trying to appeal to more casual audiences and be more budget friendly. This is important for context on the switch 2 as well. Xbox also charged for online $60 a year, that adds up. Over 4 years, that's $240. So....I can either buy a PC which replaces not just a $400 console, but a $600 computer, and $240 in online play, AND you get cheaper games, or you pay for consoles and their nonsense. At this point it actually made more sense to buy a PC.
So...ignoring the big things, let's focus on the main components. I got a phenom II X4 965 processor, which was $200 at the time. That's $292 today. The GPU was like $260. That's $380 today. Got a free upgrade to a GTX 580 which was RMAed after it died into a 760. Used that computer until around 2017. RIP, sweet prince.
Games, games on PC are cheap AF, if I really want, I'll go nuts over a battlefield game. BFBC2 cost $50 at the time, that's $73 today. And most of the time I paid anywhere between $10 and $40. Again, sticking to that $30 standard, which is about $43 today. Am able to buy a lot of games, since I'm not regularly upgrading my hardware or buying new consoles. Seriously one year for christmas, we just spent like $200 on like 12 games, it was insane. But that's the power of early/mid 2010s steam sales for you.
Replaced the PC ship of theseus style over a few years. CPU. Upgraded to a 7700k. Spent a lot on it, $300, but also figured, okay, this is the only futureproof option i got, ryzen just dropped, it sucked at gaming, i didnt expect intel to launch a better product soon. But yeah. $390 in today's money.
GPU. Got a 1060 6 GB for $270. This is $351 in today's money. And again, I used this until around 2022-2023 AND I didn't buy it all at once. Again, a piece here, a piece there.
After that, you get GPUflation. Heck, GPUs were already inflated. Crypto happened before i bought, and then again after. Prices go up to insane amounts, but go back down. Nvidia launches the 2000 series with its fricking $350 GTX 2060. Again, insane. This was in 2019. That was like $335 in 2017 money. So not much changed. Inflation was very low for most of the 2010s. CPUs also went up more. i5s started costing $260-280, of course, after the 7700k, the i5 8600k offered the same performance for just slightly less so i didnt get that ripped off by that. I7s went up to $400, which is what they should cost post COVID inflation.
2021, we get the RTX 3060 for $330. That's $300 in 2017 money. A bit high, given the MSRP of the 1060 was actually like $250. Which means $270-280 was more fair. Oh, and did we forget, the 1060 6 GB was basically the 1060 ti, the 1060 3 GB also existed for like $200. So that should've cost $220, which is what the base 1660 cost, not even the 1660 super/ti, which was $270, but yeah. Again, see how we're getting ripped off?
So...post 2020. 2022 I get a RX 6650 XT for $230 on black friday, has 3060 like performance while they still wanted $340 for that (seriously, F you, nvidia). I got an i9 12900k in a bundle deal for what amounted to $200. Seriously, a FRICKING I9. I admit, raptor lake was out by this point in 2023, but yeah. Still similar to a i5 13600k ot i7 13700k. And the former cost like $280 or $300 or something and the i7 $400. So again, getting good deals.
Games, they did get more expensive. Steam stopped making deals as good as they used to be so deals on a few year old games are back to $20-40. New games cost $70, I rarely pay more than the same old $50. I cant afford it, and I refuse to. Again, my budget basically amounts to what it always was back in like the 2000s. I'm price sensitive, and I wanna pay like 2000s prices. Because my income hasnt kept up with "inflation."
So yeah, you can go on about how much more expensive crap was back in the day. But jokes on you:
1) my family's income hasnt kept up with inflation
2) I never paid full price on much anyway. I've always been a bargain hunter spending $30ish on games. I'm not gonna stop any time soon. Even adjusting that lifestyle for inflation, the $40-50 im willing to spend is...about all I can afford. I cant afford $70-80 games.
And yeah. Lecturing me about what things used to cost and how I should be willing to pay more just pisses me off. First of all, stop licking boot. We should want cheap consumer prices.
Second of all. Quite frankly the only silver lining of the modern economy IS those low prices.
Third of all, I CAN'T FRICKING AFFORD IT. Seriously. Every decade I get bounced around the $40k mark so I still have the same amount of REAL DOLLARS that I always had. And I cant afford to pay more.
Hell, this is probably why trump won the election. Inflation is eating up our money, but WE'RE NOT SEEING A RAISE! And btw, to build on that asmongold thing, this is why people say "F your stocks, F your 401ks, let it all burn." Because the economy isn't working for us. For my generation, in my area, it's NEVER worked. It's a joke. Our entire economy is a joke. It's failing younger generations left and right. I'm only able to be as well off as i am since i live with my boomer parents. If i didn't, again, what's available to me? The same minimum wage jobs that are just as crappy and just as oppressive, that's about it.
people cant afford to live in this modern economy. And now the prices of everything is going up. So let's put this switch 2 thing in context. $450 PRE TARIFFS for the switch. GTFO of here. For a HANDHELD, this is GAME GEAR prices. Like, again, let's not ignore that the switch consoles are home console/handheld hybrids. If you're going desktop, let's look at what I paid for a cheap console over the course of my life:
Genesis- $287
N64- $258
Dreamcast- $383
PS2- $354
And let's look at nintendo prices of consoles since:
Gamecube (2001)- $360
Gamecube (2003)- $173
Wii- $395
Wii U- $416
Switch- $390
If anything, the price of HOME CONSOLES has GONE UP since around 2005.
So yeah, $450 is NOT in line with ANYTHING cost wise. The closest is the Wii U, and that basically was a failure.
But again, let's focus on handhelds from nintendo over the years:
Game boy (1989)- $231
Game boy pocket (1996)- $142
Game boy color (1999)- $137
Game boy advance (2001)- $180
Nintendo DS (2004)- $253
3DS (2011)- $354
Switch Lite (2019)- $249
So, yeah, nintendo? You can shove your $450 switch 2. Like, this is what people who scream BUT INFLATION dont understand. Back in the day, the initial costs of these consoles was high, yes, but even waiting just a year or two, would get you better prices. For a home console, from nintendo, since nintendo never uses cutting edge hardware in the first place, I'd say $300ish is fair.
For a handheld? Nah, maybe $200ish these days. Like to be fair their handhelds are beefy. And part of the reason the console is so expensive is it literally tried to compete with PC handhelds like the fricking steam deck, not understanding it's not in the same lane as a steam deck. Seriously, the thing packs graphics that is Xbox series S tier. But the thing is, THAT THING IS FRICKING $300. And they want $450 for this? Sure its portable, but it sounds like this thing is gonna basically be a steam deck. Limited portability and battery life, fricking huge, they're basically trying to do what sega did with the GAME GEAR, which was a commercial failure. WHy? because while it was amazing for its time and well ahead of the game boy in terms of tech, it also cost a metric crapton MORE! EVEN THEN. That thing cost $150 back in 1990, and it would cost $366 today! IT'S STILL CHEAPER THAN THE FRICKING SWITCH 2.
And again, did I mention these consoles and games USED to go on sale? Like, the price of hardware and software used to drop like a brick. Here's the problem with nintendo these days, THEY NEVER PUT CRAP ON SALE. Even today, the switch is $300, which is its MSRP. The switch lite is $200, which is its MSRP. Even the fricking 3DS, which I mentioned, had variations that eventually dropped to like $80. The thing launched at $250 in 2011.
And games. Mario Kart 8 normally STILL goes for $60. I'm seeing a walmart deal for $47, but still, THAT GAME IS EIGHT YEARS OLD on the switch, and is even older given it originally launched on the Wii U. So it still holds like 75% of its value despite being over A DECADE OLD.
And this is why Nintendo is just massively screwing people. Now they want $450 for a console, when their competition, the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, cost $500, are 4x as powerful, and guess what? The xbox has a weaker version comparable to the switch 2 for $300. Even then, the xbox series X is $400 right now, The PS5 seems to go as low as $375. And nintendo wants to get away with $450 for this? GTFO nintendo.
Like, here's the thing. It's like this thing was made to compete with the Asus ROG Ally and the Steam Deck. Except....PC....has a massive library, spanning back decades. All of it is playable on the ally, a good chunk of it on the linux based steam deck. Steam deck is integrated with the steam store, which has regular sales of tons of cheap games.
Even then I didnt buy a steam deck. Why? because it's too fricking expensive. I spent the last few years building up my PC into a PS5/Xbox Series X competing beast, and now I am done. I got a razer edge handheld for retro gaming and streaming. Spent half as much, more akin to GBA or DS prices at MSRP, and yeah. That's what I can afford these days.
Again, you can argue inflation if my income kept up with it, it hasn't for once. ANd for two, YES, WE ARE PAYING MORE THAN WE EVER DID FOR NINTENDO CONSOLES, AND NINTENDO HAS GOTTEN FAR GREEDIER IN RECENT YEARS SINCE THE SUCCESS OF THE SWITCH 1.
Again, if nintendo lowered prices like 1-2 years after launch, that would be one thing. Because again, you can see the history of that. And that's normally how i bought consoles. I wasnt out there at launch day most of the time, it was like 1-2 years later, THEN i upgrade. And I'm paying like 2/3 of that price.
But you know what? If we fast forward to 2030 or 2033, when we're at the end of the life cycle of the switch 2, I bet it's still gonna be $450 or even higher due to whatever tariff nonsense trump is doing.
Also, can we talk about that? I posted an article the other day pointing out how the switch 2 would cost like $600 with tariffs. However, now people are looking more at $650-750 given the switch 2 is apparently made in vietnam and then trump put like a 46% tariff on them. So...we're ####ed. Trump, you just ruined the one decent thing about the economy. Cheap consumer goods and entertainment. Congrats. Hope you like whatever backlash comes from this. Seriously maybe we will see blexas and blorida before this is done.
Also, to the bootlickers defending this. Yeah Im gonna join the asmongold people in saying F your stocks and 401ks, let them burn. Stop defending corporations and their greedy BS.