Games have actually gotten cheaper over time adjusted for inflation even as production costs have risen, it's crazy. A NES game in today's money would be around $160.
Game industry is bigger than movies and music combined which was not the case back in the NES era. Game industry has become a juggernaut with a huge consumer target base, and lower barrier to entry that allows for even random people being able to publish games instead of a few larger companies. Rise in production costs has been one that has been self imposed the way some studios go for big special effects blockbusters because they are targeting billions. Meanwhile like with movies you get these indie 2D and last gen 3D looking games being hits right alongside these billion dollar company attempts.
I guess one area you can look at is how niche products get priced lower like mechanical keyboards, and then once productions starts ramping up and things go mainstream suddenly these niche expensive ventures with a few fans becomes more affordable as larger quantities are now being distributed.
You same thing with tech like SSDs and hard drives actually falling price over time while capacities offered grows. Lot of PC parts actually with the exception of GPUs.
The game industry did get that much larger, but that's on the backs of only a few (non-Capcom) games that sell to the type of person who only buys a couple of games per year at most. Hardly any company is selling as many copies as Call of Duty sells year after year.
That's only true if you compare game sales to movie box office revenues, and music sales (which have shrunk considerably since they peaked in the 1990s). Once you account for home video sales, streaming, theme park revenues, and merchandise sales, the movie industry dwarfs the gaming industry. Once you account for artist tour and merchandise sales, the music industry dwarfs the gaming industry.
Games have actually gotten cheaper over time adjusted for inflation even as production costs have risen, it's crazy. A NES game in today's money would be around $160.
Game industry is bigger than movies and music combined which was not the case back in the NES era. Game industry has become a juggernaut with a huge consumer target base, and lower barrier to entry that allows for even random people being able to publish games instead of a few larger companies. Rise in production costs has been one that has been self imposed the way some studios go for big special effects blockbusters because they are targeting billions. Meanwhile like with movies you get these indie 2D and last gen 3D looking games being hits right alongside these billion dollar company attempts.
I guess one area you can look at is how niche products get priced lower like mechanical keyboards, and then once productions starts ramping up and things go mainstream suddenly these niche expensive ventures with a few fans becomes more affordable as larger quantities are now being distributed.
You same thing with tech like SSDs and hard drives actually falling price over time while capacities offered grows. Lot of PC parts actually with the exception of GPUs.
The game industry did get that much larger, but that's on the backs of only a few (non-Capcom) games that sell to the type of person who only buys a couple of games per year at most. Hardly any company is selling as many copies as Call of Duty sells year after year.
That's only true if you compare game sales to movie box office revenues, and music sales (which have shrunk considerably since they peaked in the 1990s). Once you account for home video sales, streaming, theme park revenues, and merchandise sales, the movie industry dwarfs the gaming industry. Once you account for artist tour and merchandise sales, the music industry dwarfs the gaming industry.
Wages haven't keep up with inflation, you need to account for the loss of disposable income since then.
Not every country was playing the NES then. Games on the formats popular in Europe were much cheaper.