With the prices of games increasingly getting higher, and most notably,Grand Theft Auto 6rumored to begetting a hefty $100 price tag, it seems like the developers are asking us to shell out more and more cash. Sometimes it does feel like we are being taken advantage of,but it’s also important to remember that even a $100 price tag is not nearly as much as we might think it is, at least in comparison to a lot of other games that have retailed for more.
While the rumors of the $100 price tag are floating around, it’s not entirely new. The price of thefirstGrand Theft Autogame on the PS1 was around $50,or $100 if adjusted for inflation. That means the price of the games have actually gone down over time, and are just now reaching around the same price they were before. However, the $50 price tag is still not as much as some of the other games that came out before then.
10Final Fantasy III
SNES
Final Fantasy IIIwas around $80 according toResetEra,which would be around $175 today. You can get a remodeled version of it on the Nintendo Switch for around $12.59, which is a significantly lower price.
Inflation is calculated using theBureau of Labor Statistic’s Inflation Calculator.
However,a big determining factor in the prices at the time was the cartridges. Cartridges are a little harder to manufacture, especially if the game requires a large amount of storage space.
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It’s worth stating that the originalFinal Fantasy IIIwas only initially released on the Family Computer, and what was released on the SNES was actuallyFinal Fantasy IVin Japan. Eventually, both games would be ported to PlayStation consoles,and the numbering was changed to keep the original Japanese numbering. This can cause a lot of confusion, but it doesn’t change the price of the SNESFinal Fantasy III.
9Street Fighter II
Street Fighter IIcame out in 1992, and when it did, it had quite the price tag on it. In Japan, prices were around $85 U.S. dollars, according toFamitsu, which can be adjusted to $191 in 2024. However, the console version of the game in Japan was actually a bit higher,around $119 at the time or $267 in 2024.
The U.S. prices were similar, although a little cheaper at the time. It was retailed around $74.99, which would put it around $170 today. It’s quite remarkable how much those prices have come down,with the latest version of Street Fighter releasing for $59.99 on most consoles, andStreet Fighter 6was considered areturn to form for the series. While having it on console would require a subscription to play, it isn’t anywhere near the price of the SNES version.
8Chrono Trigger
Chrono Triggerhad a higher base price than the other games releasing at the time. Many of the SNES games had a $49.99 retail price,but this one was going for around $80 in 1995, but the development team alone likely cost a fortune based on their history. While finding an exact price online is difficult, multiple players from sites likeReddit,FantasyAnime, andVideo Game Sageare all reporting between $79-85 as the price they paid at retail.
That puts it quite close to $170 in today’s money. This puts it close to the same amount asStreet Fighter II. However, unlike the former series,this one hasn’t been updated in quite a while, so we don’t know what it would retail for today. Chances are a console version would be around the $60 price point that most games tend to fluctuate at, but it would be nice to see this game get a remake or a sequel sometime.
7Lesser Known Games
While I hadn’t heard of many of these games before, aDiehard Game Fan Catalogfrom 1993 lists the retail prices for all of these games at $89.99, a whopping $201.36 today. I don’t know what the popularity of those games would have been at the time of release, but it is interesting that that are all more expensive than games that I have heard of in the same magazine.
Things likeCobra 1and2are listed at $69.99, andPrince of Persiais going for $74.99. And theCastlevania 4entry in this catalog is going for $59.99. I find it incredibly interesting that the price tag on those games hasn’t really changed, ignoring inflation, although as many will point out,the DLC for many modern games could put the costs much higher than the base game price, and many games likeIndiana Jones & The Great Circlerelease with DLCalready announced or included, giving the game a higher price.
6Phantasy Star IV - The End Of The Millennium
Sega Genesis
The Sega Genesis notoriously had some fairly high-priced games on the console.It cost just under $100 at $99.99 in 1995 when it released in North America, according toTime Extension, which would have been $212.28 today. Supposedly there were a lot of different reasons for this, but the Genesis had fairly high cartridge prices in general.
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Originally, the game wasn’t supposed to come to North America at all, but it did slowly make its way there and ended up getting a bit overpriced.However, other games likeVirtua Racingalso received the $99.99 price tag, so it wasn’t the only example of the Sega Genesis having higher prices.
5Action 52
This is where the prices start really going up,as the North American Genesis version of the game had an original MSRP of $199, a price tag of just over $445 today. This is reported by multiple sources, butHardcore Gaming 101references the most original source material for the number. While the cartridge came with what was said to be 52 individual games on it, it never lived up to the expectation, and many of the games were reportedly broken.
It felt a lot like a scam, and no reviews have ever had much to say aboutAction 52other than that. It’s a shame, because a good game collection is something that I enjoyed when I was younger,and this type of game would have been right up my alley if it actually worked, but at that price, it’s a wonder anyone bought it at all.
4Broken Steam Games
A Lot Of Steam Games Returned Within The Refund Window
Coming back to the present,Grand Theft Auto 6isn’t the only thing that we have to look out for. While it hasn’t been updated in a little while, thisGameRantarticle covered a number of Steam games,averaging around $199 each, none of which seemed to be worth the money. Almost all of them were returned within the refund window from the number of hours played on the reviews.
When I checked to see if these were still around onSteam, the vast majority of them were, and all but one were still listed at $199.Spooky Men,which was at one point priced at nearly $1mil, has come down significantly to join the rest of the roster at the $199 price point.The Hidden and the Unknown, once listed at $1999.90,is now listed but has no price and is not purchasable.GTA 6might cost $100, but hopefully, it will have a bit more content value than these listings, at least based on the reviews alone.
3Neo Geo AES Games
Arcade Gaming At Home For A Premium Price
The Neo Geo AES claimed to be able to bring the actual Arcade games to your own home, and that was a fair claim for them to make. However, asTravis Bowmanpoints out, you did have to shell out a small fortune if you wanted to do so. At the time, to get the Neo Geo console without a game and only one joystick,you had to pay around $399.99 in 1991, or $945.87 today.
From there, if you did want a game,the cartridges could cost close to $200 themselves on release, although this was not always true. That sameDiehard catalogfrom 1993, two years later, would show that the prices did fluctuate, ranging from $79.99 to $179.99, although these are listed as both used and new, so take the lowest number with that knowledge in mind. It was definitely a luxury item, but for those that had it, they did seem to love it and it is a great collector’s item to find today.
2Steel Battalion
Xbox
Steel Battalionis another game with a $200 price tag, although it came out a little later in 2002. Like some of the other games around that time,it came with a peripheral. However, since you couldn’t purchase it without that, it is the base price of the game. That equals around $360 today, so it’s not quite as drastic a leap, but it is still quite a bit of money.
Still, at least it had something with it to give us a little more for our money. While undeniably cool, some reviews said that there were a lot of issues, which could make that price seem a little too high.Seeing as there are consoles out in the world for around that same price, or less, it seems like an unnecessarily high price point for what it is.
1Street Fighter Zero
Capcom CPS Changer System
In 1994, Capcom released their own version of a home arcade system. Like the Neo Geo AES, it was quite expensive, but it was only sold in Japan.Most of the games were priced at around 20,000 Yen, or $196according to theVideo Game Console Library, which would be fairly similar to the rest of the games in this list. However,Street Fighter Zerosold for 35,000 Yen, which would have been $324 in 1996 when it was released.
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In 2025,that putsStreet Fighter Zeroat around $669.58 with no peripherals or anything else attached. That’s a steep price to pay, even with being able to play the arcade version of a game at home. It was released as the last game available for this console, which does affect the price, and that’s likely less than you’d pay today for what is now a collector’s item. Still, it’s no wonder the console didn’t survive for very long with those prices.
Source:ResetEra,Famitsu,Reddit,FantasyAnime,Video Game Sage,Time Extension,Diehard GameFan Catalog #3,Hardcore Gaming 101,GameRant,YouTube/Travis Bowman,Video Game Console Library,Steam,U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
