Nintendo has revealed the launch price of the Nintendo 3DS, the company’s priciest portable yet at $US249.99. How does Nintendo’s stereoscopic 3D gaming handheld compare to the competition and its ancestors?
The cost of buying into Nintendo’s latest and greatest portable gaming systems has been on the rise since the launch of the DS Lite in 2006. The company released a smaller, lighter version of its wildly popular Nintendo DS system at a price lower than the original version. From then on, there was nowhere to go but up.
Let’s break it down, chart-style.
The Game Boy was Nintendo’s most budget friendly release, a platform that also included a free game, Tetris, in the package. Adjust for inflation, the Game Boy would cost about $US158 in 2010 dollars (based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index inflation adjustment calculator). The Game Boy Advance, released in 2001 for $US99.99 would set Nintendo fans back about $US123 today.
One Nintendo platform not on this list is the doomed Virtual Boy, which launched in 1995 for about $US180 would cost about as much as a Nintendo 3DS.
How does Nintendo’s new 3DS fare against the competition in terms of handheld pricing?
It’s at the higher end of the scale, matching the price point of the PSP and PSPgo’s respective launch prices in 2005 and 2009. It’s cheaper than an N-Gage at least!
Leave a Reply