All of the consoles of history, price of 2016 – Hypertext

With the arrival of the PlayStation Pro just around the corner and the projection of Scorpio for Christmas the next year, one of the most important debates that there are on the table, beyond the technical specifications, is the price. The change of model generational incremental improvements has brought about a paradigm shift in the purchase decision of the consumer.

this new change of generations model the incremental change there are two main actors: the PlayStation Pro (that already has a date and price), and Scorpio, which for the moment has date (estimated) but not price. Despite the fact that both Sony as Microsoft have renewed their consoles launch with slim models and minor changes, the first real change in the behavior of the market what we’re going to have with the Pro and Scorpio, so it is logical to think that in terms of price both will be more or less couples if they want to maintain the competitiveness typical of a market that traditionally has been split in two.

therefore, as much as the Scorpio is, in theoretical terms more powerful than the presented Pro, the company’s statements do not suggest that it will remain as an incremental change and not a generation jump. We assume, therefore, that Scorpio will be more or less in the same tier price that Pro. With this in mind, how do they compare in price to the model incrementally in front of the model generational? is How have you evolved the prices of the consoles at launch? what about adjusted for inflation?

If we take a view of the data, what is certain is that historically, the prices of the consoles have not changed too much. By removing a couple of exceptions, the truth is that, if we adjust prices for inflation, what is certain is that in the last 40 years the average price of the consoles is around $ 500 (remember, the average price with the entirety of consoles from the 70s including prices enormously expensive as the 3DO, Neo Geo and CD-i). In fact, despite the widespread belief, the consoles today are not as cheap as it seems if we compare them with some of the best-selling release.

Of the consoles recent the PS3 has been more expensive

let us Take as a reference the consoles from the fifth generation (Playstation 1 onwards). The price data shown as at launch, the Playstation 3 has been the console more expensive in recent years. However, adjusted for inflation, the price of the Sega Saturn is significantly similar to that of the PS3 and higher than that of the Xbox One, despite the fact that the market perception is that consoles have experienced an overall drop in prices over the years.

The graph above shows the evolution of the prices in each launch of the console by year of release, both in original price as in the adjusted prices. As we can see, and removing some outliers like the Neo-Geo and 3DO for the economic problems and currency of the moment, what is certain is that the price of the consoles has been falling over the years, with a mean set of 411 dollars for the data set ’70s to 2016.

PS4, for its part, is the console cheaper in terms of both launch as adjusted, of the that has put Sony in the market, unlike the Xbox One, for example, which has experienced a sustained growth of the prices in their different generations (for example One with Kinect), although little by little in the market have been decreasing their price. Of the Pro, for the moment, we only have reference prices of its launch, so we don’t know how it will behave with the rest in terms of comparison with the adjusted prices in a few years, but be that as it may, it still has a price on par with the PS4 at launch, although if we use the reference prices of PS4, the Pro is still noticeably cheaper

The Nintendo and the DreamcCast, the cheapest

however, compared to historical prices adjusted, consoles are cheaper, have traditionally been the Nintendo. If you set the prices, the consoles massive cheaper are the GameCube, the Nintendo 64 and the Wii, and the absolute winner of console cheaper if you set your price, 2016 is, without a doubt, the DreamCast from Sega.

If the trend continues, it is expected that the average price of the consoles continue to fall gradually until an equilibrium price, which in recent years has been maintained in the approximate $ 400, not bad for the “last generation of consoles”.