Today’s game consoles are historically overpriced
Today's video game consoles are hundreds of dollars more expensive than you'd expect based on historic pricing trends. That's according to an Ars Technica analysis of decades of pricing data and price-cut timing across dozens of major US console releases.
The overall direction of this trend has been apparent to industry watchers for a while now. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have failed to cut their console prices in recent years and have instead been increasing the nominal MSRP for many current consoles in the past six months.
If the original Switch followed historic pricing trends, it could be selling for a bargain basement $100 to $150 right now. Credit: Kyle Orland 
Even accounting for inflation, some PS5 consoles are more expensive today than they were at launch. Credit: Kyle Orland 
Despite cratering Xbox hardware sales, Microsoft has been unwilling to cut prices on Xbox consoles. Credit: Kyle Orland But when you crunch the numbers, it's pretty incredible just how much today's console prices defy historic expectations, even when you account for higher-than-normal inflation in recent years. If today's consoles were seeing anything like what used to be standard price cuts over time, we could be paying around $200 today for pricey systems like the Switch OLED, PS5 Digital Edition, and Xbox Series S.