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“Gaming is becoming unaffordable” — Xbox CEO says the industry has an accessibility crisis (www.windowscentral.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Well no but also yes.

An Atari 2600 was $160 in 1979. Cartridges were $25-40. Adjust for inflation and that's $738.56 for a console and $115-184 per cartridge.

Also minimum wage was $2.90 ($13.39). Median family income was $19,660 ($90,750.94).

And it was new tech.

So the prices have come down. There are a lot of amazing games that are cheap that you can play basically forever. Minecraft, Dead Cells, Skyrim, etc.

But our expectations have risen while our wages have come down.

So not wrong, but not right for the reasons you'd assume.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    An Atari 2600 was $160 in 1979. Cartridges were $25-40. Adjust for inflation and that’s $738.56 for a console and $115-184 per cartridge.

    Dunkey, is that you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPkAYT6B1Q

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Bonus: A game you no longer play could still net something on the second-hand market, or maybe you'd trade it with someone. I know there was a group of people at my school that collectively had like two or three copies of the various Pokemon games they'd pass around, exchanging and loaning them on the fly.

    Steam Family Sharing is a thing, but not quite so trivial to set up as handing them the cartridge. Never mind about reselling digital copies of games.

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