Most and least expensive consoles ever charted

Did you think the Xbox One was expensive at launch? Well, it was and is, but it's far from the worst culprit on the chart this Redditor put together, listing all of the consoles from the past near four decades and adjusting their prices for inflation. Without scrolling down, take a swing at which you think were the most and least affordable consoles from gaming history.

Well if we look back to recent history, the Xbox 360 and Wii were pretty affordable, as is the Wii U (especially if you buy one of the many on Ebay at the moment) but the PS3 was pretty bad, costing the equivalent of $567 in today's money. That's nothing on the Sega Saturn though. Released in 1995 with an original price of $400, it's $595 by today's standards. Compared to its contemporaries the N64 and PlayStation ($289 and $446 after inflation) and Sega priced itself well out of the market.

It improved things with the Dreamcast though, with a launch price of just $200, or $272 in 2013 money. Compared with the PS2, the easy winner of that generation, it was almost half price; and it still failed.

Thanks Auir2Blaze

However, if you haven't just read what you were looking for in the chart above, let's talk most and least expensive. The cheapest console in history was the Nintendo Gamecube, launching at $200 in 2001; today it would cost you only a little more: £259. Nintendo has in-fact been affordable since it's been making consoles. The Wii U's adjusted price isn't much more at $300, similarly the Wii works out to $284. The NES was the most expensive at $412 after adjustments.

The worst culprit though, was the Neo Geo, launching in 1990 for a whopping $650. That works out to $1,125 today. The 3DO wasn't far behind it though, costing $700 when it debuted in 1993. Today that would be just under $1100.

KitGuru Says: So I guess we're lucky with the latest console launch that none of it is too bad. Puts the Wii U in quite a good light too. 

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