r/snes • u/SNESdrunk • Oct 27 '13

1996 Toys R Us SNES advertisement and prices

Post image
114 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

19

u/ChaseTx Oct 27 '13

For some reason I thought game prices had been increasing every generation up to this point.

19

u/BangkokPadang Oct 27 '13

If you account for inflation, games are actually much cheaper now, than they have ever been.

According to coinnews.com's inflation calculator, The $59.99 games from 1996 should cost $89.42

Click Here To See

14

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

So Chrono Trigger has maintained its value pretty well.

1

u/friendlysoviet Oct 28 '13

Chrono Trigger Standard

2

u/Hellenas Oct 28 '13

I'd like to see this account for the cost of a cart versus a disc. Discs are much cheaper all around.

3

u/BangkokPadang Oct 28 '13

I'd say the rise in production costs for game developers has certainly filled the gap left by the lower priced media.

1

u/Hellenas Oct 29 '13

Solid thinking.

3

u/Spiffu Oct 27 '13

This also has to do with the cost of memory at the time and how much the game required.

Example: Final Fantasy VI/III cost $80 when it came out in 1994 because of the memory amount on the cart.

3

u/grantly0711 Oct 28 '13

It's also very likely due to manufacturing costs. It's WAY cheaper to copy discs and package it in a cheap plastic case with printed paper than cartridges in heavy plastic.

2

u/SNESdrunk Oct 28 '13

It's not so much the plastic as it is the actual computer chips, parts and batteries

1

u/Rabidowski Jan 18 '23

Also, Nintendo retained exclusive right to manufacture the carts and would sell them to the game publishers who then re-sold them. Nintendo controlled every price point of the parts that went into those carts. Nintendo made a profit on every cartridge even if the publishers couldn't sell the games in the end.

13

u/Goo_Back Oct 27 '13

It's pretty amazing that they're promoting all 3 Donkey Kong Country games in one advertisement.

6

u/thecoffee Oct 28 '13

90's DLC.

10

u/SNESdrunk Oct 27 '13

The number of games that cost more than $50 is pretty surprising.

I was always under the impression that the average game price back then was $50 for SNES, with the occasional game like Street Fighter II Turbo getting $65-70.

4

u/MaiPhet Oct 27 '13

Yeah. I actually remember 59.99 being about the usual price, though that number didn't mean much to me as a kid.

5

u/Zeppelanoid Oct 27 '13

What's even more surprising is that games are priced similarly nowadays, considering inflation and whatnot.

1

u/Rabidowski Jan 18 '23

Cartridges came in 8mb, 16mb 32mb sizes. Battery backed memory was also extra. The $50 games were in the 8mb or 16mb price range. Adding Battery+mem added $10 to the final cost, and upping to 32mb added another $10-$15

5

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Yeah but those coupons were total bullshit

6

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '13

Remember though, this is in CANADIAN dollars, NOT USD. These prices were fairly standard. I can remember back in 2000, N64 games would cost me $50 in the US and would cost my cousins in Canada ~$100. IIRC, the exchange rate was nearly double during that timeframe.

5

u/Creature_73L Oct 27 '13

Love old ads like this. Really takes you back.

5

u/MetroidAndZeldaFan Oct 27 '13

It's interesting how cheap video games are nowadays with inflation and the amount it costs to even make these current gen games. Also, those prices are really expensive considering that there was no internet back then so there was no way to know which game was good or bad.

1

u/izlude7027 Oct 27 '13

You have to remember, however, that the software costs almost nothing now to reproduce. There's a huge initial investment in development and marketing, but producing enormous quantities of games on digital media is cheap.

1

u/MetroidAndZeldaFan Oct 28 '13

Yeah, sadly, companies are saving even more money by only releasing digital copies. I would always rather pay a bit more to have a physical copy to display on my shelf.

1

u/izlude7027 Oct 28 '13

I can certainly understand that. There's definitely something to be said for being able to switch between games without getting up and sifting through stacks of cases, though.

3

u/tortus Oct 27 '13

What I would give to go back to that time.

2

u/DG-88 Oct 27 '13

80 $ for umk3 damm

1

u/Creature_73L Oct 27 '13

am I missing something, because it says $70

1

u/pvuong85 Oct 27 '13

He's probably accounting for the tax too

edit: So assuming sales tax is anywhere from 8-10%

edit edit: And probably rounding up

1

u/Creature_73L Oct 28 '13

Idk if that's the case. Some states don't even have sales tax.

2

u/OniLynx Oct 27 '13

Canadian or US prices? God damn, I should apologize to my parents for the long Christmas lists year after year filled with nothing but SNES or N64 game requests. Holy inflation.

2

u/InconsiderateBastard Oct 27 '13

It looks like US prices. I remember being shocked at some of those prices, especially UMK3.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was billed as being a gigantic game. They used to advertise the hell out of the fact that it was 32 Megabit. Wow! 32 Whole Mega Bits. So it came out as a $70 game. I believe the original Mortal Kombat 3 came out at $50 or $60.

Best part is, UMK3 and MK3 are the same size. They couldn't fit any more in the cartridge, so for everything they added to make the Ultimate version, they had to cut out something from the original version.

2

u/lizgun71circleX Oct 28 '13

Is it just me, or is it crazy that DKC 2 is only $7 cheaper than DKC 3? And that's after a coupon.

1

u/thecoffee Oct 28 '13

Costs extra for the river ride.

2

u/vazzaroth Nov 20 '13

Is there a subreddit just for this sort of thing?

1

u/Technology2006 Apr 08 '24

It was pretty close to the N64 release date so that's why it may be cheaper since the console was getting older