This gen is expensive! What about next gen?

Yup because you have to get the new HD surround HD TV DLC online services its crazy.

PS3 at launch was $499 for 20gb or $599 for 60gb.

As for the TC... wrong on so many levels. The only people who think gaming is more expensive now are people who a) don't comprehend inflation and b) have just now started having to buy games with their own money. $200 for an NES in the mid 80's is the same as over $400 today. Most NES games (new) cost between $30 and $45. Or $60-$90 by todays standards. SNES games averaged $40-$50 (new), with some costing as much as $80. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $60-$130. N64 games typically ran from $50 to $80 new, or $70 to $110 adjusted to today's inflation rate.

So really, $60 for today's games is as cheap as games ever were, once you factor in how much the value of $1 has changed, and that's with games costing millions more to make than they used to.

Here's a chart with console prices and inflation:

http://curmudgeongamer.com/2006/05/history-of-console-prices-or-500-aint.html

And here's a link to an inflation calculator, provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

ianuilliam

Well prices had to go up at some point. No industry is inflation-proof.

Next gen will probably be even more expensive.

Gaming has never been cheap. Get a job :P

Gaming has never been cheap. Get a job :P

Wasdie

Even with a job plus a family to support it still is hard, unless you are single. Took awhile for me to get where im to, i was abit late with getting stuff this gen with a new hd tv and stuff.

When a console costs more than 700 bucks like the 3DO back in the day, that's when you know gaming is REALLY expensive.:|

Gaming is an expensive hobby. It has made me broke so many times, but it's well worth it (mostly).

Im just hoping Nintendo Ups their game for next gen, I want a console pokemon game.

What on earth are you talking about? Games are FAR less expensive than they were 20 years ago because of inflation... and not only that, the amount of content you get in a game nowadays is so much higher that it's not even possible to compare. I know people complain that games like Splinter Cell "have 5 hour campaigns"... but you're still ahead of where you were in 1990 (where games were only long because they padded out with impossible difficulty or had repetitive nonsense i.e. JRPG random battles). - Just for fun I went back and downloaded Twisted Metal 2 from the PSN store. I was thinking "oh man, a night of fun, this game was so great". I beat the campaign in 45 minutes flat, and had zero desire to go back through with other characters. Yeah, I might go back again and play for some short fun, but the graphics were terrible, the sound is primitive, and the controls are AWFUL. This was a game I thought was amazing 14 years ago. I seriously would play it all day long, thought the battle controls were tight, and loved playing with friends. Now? It's unplayable by modern standards. - My point is that modern games simply have so much more going for them. The next generation could charge $500 for a console and $70 for a game and I'd still think we were getting a fair deal. Now I doubt that will be the case (I suspect games will continue wanting to be cheap up front and charge more over time, either via ads, add-ons or subscriptions) but we're not exactly getting a bad deal. subrosian

Used to be mainly kids playing games. Now the first generation of gamers makes enough money of their own and many still game. We can afford it, companies know this so they'll ask for more money since we'll pay it anyway.