Were they really -this- expensive?

That's Maple syrup land money.

US didn't see prices like that till N64.

>>3009275
Makes more sense now.

>>3009275
With that said I don't think there were 80 dollar games. Sure they went up to 70 bucks for the N64, but not 80~90. That was probably one of the advantages for the PS1 during that time, they probably paid 50 bucks for their games instead. I had a N64 during that period though.

>>3009305
I may be thinking of the game+game guide games that were like $90.

Greatest hit PS1 games were $30 at time. Maybe lower. I remember most being like $40 though.

>>3009305
Only normal $80+ game that comes to mind is Chrono Trigger.

I remember new PS1 games were $40, except for multidisc games which were $50. Of course, that was a couple years into the system's life. I believe the games were $50-60 when the system first came out.

Games were usually around $50 USD. Certain games though could be $70 or more, such as games with lots of RAM like Virtua Racing or JRPGs since they took larger budgets to translate. Phantasy Star 4 was almost $100 when it came out.

>>3009267
Probably Canadian.
>Sears
>Toys R Us
guaranteed rip off. Electronics Boutique 50$ anything new

File: simple1500-8def[1].jpg (298KB, 1285x1030px) Image search: [Google]

298KB, 1285x1030px

Standard price for SNES games was $50-$60 while standard price for Genesis was $40-$50 and Nintendo didn't learn their lesson since the majority of N64 games were $59.99+ while the majority of Playstation games were under $40, and single disc shovelware was often $20-$30 at release, plummeting even lower post-2000.

This outright price war was even bloodier in Japan with the Simple 1500 series unfortunately localization was cost-prohibitive so we never saw any of these games in the West

>>3009305
Wasn't Earthbound originally $80 since it came with a strategy guide? I don't remember prices back in the day because even back then I was buying used games at the flea market.

File: hQGu1.jpg (246KB, 1024x818px) Image search: [Google]

246KB, 1024x818px

I've been interested in this too, considering that I wasn't old enough to even consider how much money DKC would have been when I was a lad. Could I read well enough to play FF2? Yes. Money? No concept.

The prices aren't too far off from Canadaland's, but $129 in 1997 (the date of this flyer) that was about $200.

>>3009275
humm
i was a kid in the 90s in banana land, everybody rented, saturday to monday to play 3 days and pay 1 rent, usually $ 4.00 bananas, ill hypothesize thats one reason there were less fat kids in the 90s, we spent our icecream money on renting games, and playing hourly for probably 1.00 banana hourly on friday to chose which game to rent Saturday morning.

Leaning towards the end of 90s used snes/megadrive games were going for 50, man i sure were stupid, 8 weeks saving and i could buy a new game instead of renting, and with 2~3 games i could probably be always playing one while looking to trade the other 2 for others,

at least i could play my 1 owned game (wild guns) upside down and thru a mirror

>>3009267
90 Canadian for a sealed copy of Earthbound, take me back please.

>>3009267
that's extremely high. the most I ever paid for a SNES game was maybe 70, and that was for squaresoft RPG's when they were brand new. 1st party SNES games were usually 50 or 60

>>3009275
>US didn't see prices like that till N64.

not true. the only n64 game that was over 60 when it was released was Conker's BFD

>>3009473

In 2001 there was a Wal-Mart clearing them out for $20 and they had two copies behind the glass case... I was a broke ass teenager and I asked my dad to front me some cash but he wouldn't because I already had a used copy (still have it) of the game.

One of the biggest regrets of my life right there.

>>3009305
Yeah bought GoldenEye for $70 at Sears in USA. Don't remember what year

What's more crazy is that they went down in price to about 5 bucks for a few years, then jumped up again for "collectors value". My dad took me to a pawn shop when I was little and got a bunch of Genesis games for 5 bucks each. Now they're worth triple that at least.

>>3009569
You can find some PS2 and PS3 games for real cheap right now too.
Right now they're just used games from last gen. In another gen or two they'll become collectors items.

This ad comes from consumers distributing a catalogue company now defunct but was in Canada until the mid 90s. And yeah prices were that high and still are. I miss getting their catalogues running through the toy/game section and dreaming of getting stuff that in reality I could never afford.

>>3009610
nah

cdrom/dvd/bluray games will never be worth shit

save for the odd ball like snatcher, and even so only as for autist collectors, for mint media, maybe sealed boxes for the monalisa-tier collectorfag...

but theres just too many mod chipped ps1 ps2, and running a a downloaded "rom" is as easy as recording a disc in a laptop burner that every one will have at home.

ps2 nostalgic players arent old enough to have waste money and create a market bubble, so i guess time will tell if my reasoning makes sense.

you see some dreamcast cast games going for good cash, it uses a custom media GD, i never researched the subject so i have no idea how a home user can pirate copies, but i imagine thats a major reason why SDC games are valued.

>>3009267
I very specifically remember Perfect Dark was $99

>>3009553
Turok was 74.99 when it came out. I remember because I actually wanted to buy it and was surprised it was more expensive than the others.

>>3009305
There were a few 80 dollar ones including Chrono and Earthbound, and a vast majority of the niche or premium titles were 70.
When you look at it that way, games really haven't inflated all that much.

>>3009267
dude fucking chrono trigger and hyper fighting were like a hundred fucking dollars when they came out

ROM chips were expensive for a time during the 90s, the prices would fluctuate a lot and the bigger carts cost quite a bit more

some carts with expansion chips (Virtua Racing) sold for over $100

>>3009275

Not that either.

SNES titles over 60 maplebucks were virtually unheard-of.

The ad is from Consumers Distributing. Their prices were always atrocious and like most other mail order catalogs they went bust around the mid-90s when their business model could no longer be sustained.

>tfw you only owned a few games as a kid because they were expensive
>tfw maybe you got obe for christnas if you were lucky
>tfw, on the othrer hand, your family went to blockbuster every week
This, coupled with the relatively ease with which you could sit down and play games (without having to do a 15hr campaign replete with cutscenes) is what made rental stores so awesome back then.

>>3009275
>>3009403
>>3010119
>1995 in Canada
>SNES games $19.99-59.99 all day every day

RIP Zellers

Fuck Microplay though. $120 for Chrono Trigger at release.

File: phantasy-star-4-genesis-box.jpg (151KB, 640x882px) Image search: [Google]

151KB, 640x882px

>>3009275
>US didn't see prices like that till N64.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

I've always assumed that the reasons why so (relatively) few RPGs were released in the west (despite there being thousands in Japan) were the ndustry-held belief that western consumers didn't like the anime look and the belief that videogames were a young child's pursuit and so ones requiring a lot of reading wouldn't sell.

Was it actually because the physical production costs of big RPG games made them too expensive to appeal to consumers? If Phantasy Star IV really did cost 100 fucking dollars I highly doubt many people bought it.

>>3010159

well I imagine it's a bit of both.

If they thought they would sell more they wouldn't have to charge as much because they'd sell more units

because they're niche though they have to charge more per copy to make up the difference

>>3009305
I remember Hey You! Pikachu! Being $79.99 when I got it new.

>>3009439
>15 dollars for a brand new controller that still works to this day

Sure as hell beats 60 bucks for a flimsy pad that breaks within a year.

>>3009275
No it's not, that's just direct-mail markup.

Lived in Canada since 1981, never saw a (new) SNES game priced over $60.

Shining Force was at least 90 Burgerbucks at release. Games were very pricey but did eventually drop drastically if they didn't sell.

>>3009305
I remember buying Ps1 games for $30 bucks
most of the time.
Even new Atari 2600 games and NES games were pricey at the time they were around and new.
But their were SNES games that were around $80 or so.

File: vr02.jpg (79KB, 320x192px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 320x192px

I'm pretty sure that Virtua Racing on the Genesis/Megadrive sold for $100 in the US and £70 in the UK.

Fucking crazy.

try looking up Neo Geo shit

>>3010369
Neo Geo was always marketed as more of a high-end gaming machine for collectors and gaming enthusiasts.

It was never the kind of device a kid would own nor the kind of thing you'd see on the high street.

Did you ever know anyone who owned one back then? Me neither.

>>3010367
Pretty sure Phantasy Star 4 as well

>>3009275
The fuck it didn't. Phantasy Star IV, Earthbound, Mega Man X2, X3, Star Fox. There were a lot of games that were sold retail for $70+ back then. Prices only started to normalize with CD based games.

>>3009275
>US didn't see prices like that till N64.
Actually it's not that far off, I paid 80USD for Final Fantasy III and IIRC I also paid that for Super Metroid.

The most expensive 3rd gen console game I recall was NES Nobunaga's Ambition which I recall had its Toys R Us tag at $69.99.

Back to the subject of 4th, I remember always wanting Phantasy Star 4- if it was $100 no wonder I never saw it used anywhere.

You should have seen the prices of SNES games here in the UK. Parity with US dollars was frequent. So Nintendo raped 60 great british pounds out of us for their carts.

>mfw mega drive and snes cartridges were almost all 99 bucks a pop here in switzerland
fucking richfags

>>3010869
>Parity with US dollars was frequent.

You mean Nintendo sold games at the same number value for GBP, or somehow back then GBP was at equal parity to USD? (I doubt the latter)

>>3010869
>So Nintendo raped 60 great british pounds out of us for their carts.

I read that and immediately pictured a very extreme weight loss plan.

>>3010869
Nintendo's own in-house games were usually £40 regardless of the title (games with an FX chip like Starwing were £50).

It was 3rd party titles which broke the £60-£70 retail mark.

There's an argument to be made that 3rd party publishers had to charge these prices just to try and make a profit under Nintendo's ridiculous licensing policy.

Still felt like we were ripped off to fuck though, especially considering that PAL verisons of games (at that time) were generally shitter quality.

>>3010886
we were gouged for years. I could scan articles from the press, but I can't be arsed. ninty found guilty of price fixing in court.

>>3010921
Yeah, apparently Nintendo software retailed at up 65% more in Germany and The Netherlands than they did in the UK.

Let that shit sink in for a moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2375967.stm

File: 14511412227080.jpg (29KB, 491x605px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 491x605px

>>3010886
I remember Christmas 1995 I was allowed £100 to spend on SNES games.

I got Killer Instinct (£40), Super Bomberman 3 (£40) and super Metroid (£20).

I remember thinking it was good value at the time.

>>3010939
Probably the lower prices were because the 16-Bit was beginning to wind down.

Note that Nintendo's own in-house title is half the price of those 3rd party titles you mentioned.

Burgerland reporting in. 29.99 - 49.99 for new NES games. SNES was always 59.99 across the board. I remember kiddie city toystores had the last generation shit for new. I recall buying mega man iv new during the 4th generation for 34.99 there.

>>3009267
>Were they really -this- expensive?

Yes, that's what resellers want you to believe.

Any SNES game over $10 is reseller jewing.

>>3009439
2 games for the cost of the entire system, and it comes with donkey kong cuntry!

>>3010208
I insisted on a second first-party controller when my dad bough the Super Nintendo and it was the wisest thing I think I ever asked for as a kid.

All my friends, every one of them, had shitty 3rd party ones that broke on them.

>>3010204
it had a peripheral of course it was more

>>3010150
You could always post an advert for FSIV rather than pretending to laugh on an imageboard

>>3010006
>cdrom/dvd/bluray games will never be worth shit
Someone's never heard of the Sega Saturn.

haha thank god for blockbusters. We used to live in blockbusters.

>>3011635
rofl, indeed i didnt even think about it.

lets see, dreamcast had the excuse to use a different media type.

did saturn have not an omnipresent modchip market like ps1?

with todays firmware modded dvdburners you can even make original-like discs for ps1 that pass copy protection, perhaps saturn fandom never reached critical mass to be graced with genius corsairs to brek segas designs(?)

>>3009267

$50?

Are all you kids fucking nuts?

Games were $20 a pop until the late 90s

>>3011885
In what country's dollars? Certainly not the US.

>>3009305

Street Fighter 2 and Chrono Trigger were 80 or 90 when they first came out in America.

>>3009553

You obviously didnt get n64 right when it came out. I paid 70 for NBA Hangtime because it was the only game that wasnt sold out everywhere and i wasnt a poor.

File: mkt-screen4.png (286KB, 400x300px) Image search: [Google]

286KB, 400x300px

Chipping in an exact memory:

On release, Mortal Kombat Trilogy was $39.99 for the PS1 and $59.99 for the N64

File: 1441857224659.jpg (79KB, 800x1201px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 800x1201px

>>3012997

>>3011883
Not sure how common modchips were back in the day but there are several ways to play pirated games on the saturn like using a flashed action-replay cart, doing the swap trick or using an sd loader like Rhea

>>3009267
Canada here. I paid $95 for Killer Instinct when it came out.

50-60 dollars is still more expensive than today's games, accounting for inflation.

>>3009305
I remember wanting Pokemon Stadium 2 really bad, but it was 80 bucks. So they did reach that price here.

>>3010006
Are you retarded? If a game is good or rare (or both) it'll be worth a fortune.

PS1, Saturn, Gamecube, and even Dreamcast have games worth over $100. Even some PS2 games are starting to skyrocket.

>>3009439
>$70 for that shitty SFA2 port

my god

>>3009275

i remember n64 games all being $50

>>3010881

He's saying that if a game cost $60 USD, than it cost £60. They didn't take into account the conversion rate which probably favored GBP. Thus, British people had to pay more for their games.

File: PD.gif (10KB, 487x298px) Image search: [Google]

10KB, 487x298px

>>3013026
>>3012997
nintendo makes consoles for children, that cant be trusted to optical discs, so they went with the superior

cartridges
a
r
t
r
iii
d
g
e
s

if only they had used optical disc cartridges, basicaly like the 3 inches rigid diskettes, but 5 inch and with a cdrom inside.

and we would pirate n64 like it was bananas

>>3013268
>PS1, Saturn, Gamecube, and even Dreamcast have games worth over $100

yeah like i said, collectors will pay just for collecting sake, haha,

its not like on carts that everdrives cant play, or ones that it doesnt work with all perks, saving for instance, and with specialchip-carts for repro/cloning being a limited stock doesnt help much.

but take ps1 and ps2 for instance, you can have all games at the cost of optical media, so only a tiny library of games will have a considerable fandom paying more than a sum that would be worth not going thru the hassle of burning media, as you well pointed even ps1 has these

only faggots pay $100 for a factory mass-produced piece of plastic that can be reproduced with 100% usability..

>>3014445
I'd like to see someone play a game like Monster Rancher 4 emulated or whatever.

>>3010869
Wasn't really a Nintendo thing, That was pretty standard across the industry back then.

>>3011883
>perhaps saturn fandom never reached critical mass to be graced with genius corsairs to brek segas designs(?)

Burnt Saturn games can be played with a soft modded Action Replay.

>>3009267
Final Fantasy III was $70 USD on release day. I remember a handful of others being about the same. My parents used to stick to the $49.99 or lower category mostly, especially right after the SNES release. I think the Super Scope bundle was like 89 or something.

>>3009267
yes. I only had like 5 snes games growing up and usually rented them from the local vhs movie rental shop that went out of business.

That's the difference in old and new console games. Old games may have started out $50+ but they ALL go into the bargain bin at insanely cheap before you even know it, including consoles themselves. Vs today where you still have to pay insane prices for even last-gen consoles and their games.

I don't remember them being this expensive but I was only 5 when I got SNES and the N64 came out a year or so later. I do remember some N64 games being more pricey than others though superman 64 was 80 dollars for god knows whatever reason.

Its understandable for cartridge based games though as production costs would vary based on storage size of the cartridge where as CDs were always 700MB.

they only cost $5 if you rented them from bluckbustard.

>>3016424
may it's huge blue sign never turn gray in some shitty trash dump. lol

>>3010150

It had a big ROM size for the time.

>>3010146
>Fuck Microplay though. $120 for Chrono Trigger at release.

I think I remember playing 80 or 90 for Majora's Mask and Kirby Super Star at Toys R Us when I was like... 10 with Birthday Money.

Still been meaning to get Kirby Super Star back, but I don't really wanna pay what people want for it right now, other games have priority.

>>3010881
Same anon. Yes, games released on Nintendo formats were often sold for the same numerical value as dollars making them at least 20% more expensive. I don't remember whether it was just 3rd party games, but every time my 9yo self went into a real games shop (remember those?) all I would see would be a wall of £50+ games.

It wasn't just games either as I remember Christmas 98 Nintendo trying to sell gameboy color for £70. Lol. You could get a playstation for not much more by that time. Even as a kid I new which was better value