old school game costs?!

yeah... so my brother whos 23 the other day was telling me how when the nes and snes were out that the games then would sometimes to to 80 BUCKS!!!!... and due to inflation... 80 bucks then is a lil more now... so if u think 50 bucks for a new game is spendy think again.... but im not so sure... thisi s why i put this threadf up... does anyone know wut the actual costs were back then for games on the old systems?!?!

your bro is probably right though i don't remember the price i am only 17 and hav no real memory of prices back then

Yeah, I have heard people say they regularly shelled out $60-80 for (s)NES games.

Damn, I didn't realize that.

The only game I remember being ridiculously high was Mortal Kombat 4 for N64 at $80.

i don't think that it is true, i remember my dad telling me that the NES system cost $100 when it first came out. i doubt that the games would be up to eighty bucks each.
also, we never had too much money then and we had about fifteen games at the time. plus my dad is very cheap, and would not pay that much.

i would like to add to this.... i looked on ebay today for "new leg. of zelda".. and the original price tag was 35 bucks... but i fugured it may have been a later released copy.

*Moved to General Gaming* The NES/SNES Zelda section is only meant for discussions about LoZ, AoL, or ALttP.

Originally Posted by E.J.

i don't think that it is true, i remember my dad telling me that the NES system cost $100 when it first came out. i doubt that the games would be up to eighty bucks each.

You should have seen the price for the original Gameboy when it came out. One of those babies had the cost close to an NES (if you think about it, the Gameboy was pretty much a portable NES). When my parents bought me a used Gameboy, they shelled it out for $75 (it came with a couple of games such as Ultima, Tetris, Super Mario Land, etc...). Just imagine if it was brand spanking new.

-BGS

My Ocarina of Time was around £50, which is approximately $90 or so- it was a christmas present, and most units were sold out, which was why the price was so high.
It wasn't that much more expensive than regular prices though, in the UK all N64 games sold for over £39!

Originally Posted by BigGoronSword

You should have seen the price for the original Gameboy when it came out. One of those babies had the cost close to an NES (if you think about it, the Gameboy was pretty much a portable NES). When my parents bought me a used Gameboy, they shelled it out for $75 (it came with a couple of games such as Ultima, Tetris, Super Mario Land, etc...). Just imagine if it was brand spanking new.
-BGS

I actually have the liberty of saying that I recieved a game boy within the first four months of it's release. My memory still serves me well, because I remember the original gameboy back in 1989 around christmastime was around, if not over $100 dollars. The one that was purchased by my aunt (god love her, rip..) was a gameboy, and Tetris. Those two together were probably over $100 dollars. Glad to say that I still have that gameboy in very good running and physical condition.

My parents loved the NES as much as my brother and I did. Were the games expensive? Yes. The average price that *I* can recall was anywhere from 49.95-59.95 (At Toys 'R Us back in the day). This was probably around '88-'89 also, because I remember a day that we went, and bought AoL very vividly, and it was around the 59 dollar range back at that time.

So yes, considering that, game prices haven't really changed all that much.

Old school games are cheap. You can go to the mall and find some sometimes but you can find anything you want at a flee market or online. The game will only be exspensive if it has a reason, for example Secret Of Mana, Earthbound and Crono Trigger on SNES will always be very exspensive. But the adverage NES game is only about 3 bucks.

Originally Posted by Lord Yoshi

Old school games are cheap. You can go to the mall and find some sometimes but you can find anything you want at a flee market or online. The game will only be exspensive if it has a reason, for example Secret Of Mana, Earthbound and Crono Trigger on SNES will always be very exspensive. But the adverage NES game is only about 3 bucks.

Ummm LY....we already know that. We are talking about the cost of games when they were first released in the 80's

-BGS

Production costs were higher, cartridges take more money to make than discs. Even N64, as people have mentioned suffered from that problem. I think the real cost comes when you compare a game to a system: if I buy a new system do i really want to pay 1/3 of it's pice again to make it more than a nice looking piece of plastic? Old games cost were in materials, new games cost more because of developement of the title.

I purchased Phantasy Star IV when it came out for a steep price. $90.
Let me tell you that it was worth every cent.

It was crazy that one game in the SNES era costed $60. Even in the N64 era it was really over priced. I don't recall ever seeing an average game selling for over $60 though, not unless it came with a special add on or doohikey.

I remember paying $70 for my copy of Secret of Mana. Great game, horrible price. And this wasn't terribly uncommon.

If there's any doubt regarding high prices of old NES and SNES games, recall that Nintendo has faced numerous charges in the past in various markets for artificial price inflation and anticompetitive tactics aimed specifically at allowing them to freely set their own prices.

I don't remember much, because I wasn't alive in the 80's, but I remember my brother, my mom and I going to get a SNES for his Birthday. It was 100 dollars, but I don't remember how much the games were. We rented most of them, so that may have been the reason.

~Remember kids, Ganon not Gannon