Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Other => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on December 20, 2012, 02:33:08 am
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Anybody here (especially Ranman and Art of Camelot) remember those stores called Consumers Distributing (Distribution aux Consommateurs in Quebec) that used to exist until 1996 or so? They were the American counterpart of the UK-based stores called Argos, sort-of.
They offered pretty much what large stores such as Target or Walmart offered except no food and instead of showing items in a standard store, they were stored behind the counter in a warehouse. You had to browse the catalog (most people had one delivered at their home) to find what you want, then come at the store, write down the item ID on a paper form, give it to the cashier, then wait minutes so they bring the item out of the warehouse behind. It wasn't that great due to items always being out of stock (which is partially a cause of their demise) and the long wait, but darn they had lots of stuff at lower price than most places and the catalogue especially, it was fun to browse as kid.
Well guess what I just found: A C.D. catalog archive! http://www.cdarchive.ca/ O.O
Basically you can go back in time and browse through those old things. They actually converted parts of 3 catalogs, including the final one, in PDF format, and you can even select text! However, they converted the most important thing:
THE ELECTRONIC SECTION
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As a fan of electronic stuff and video games, that part brought me back some good ol' memories lol, and WOW at the price of things even back in 1996!
Today, it's almost impossible to believe that electronic organizers even existed at all before, let alone how much they costed. And look at the price of those VCRs.
Anyway, enjoy
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Lol some of those games in there are cheaper than they resell for these days :P Example: link to the past
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Actually some are still on-par, because I saw AlttP for the same price at a local used game store once. I did see Chrono Trigger with the box for $200, though.
Also here are some possible causes for the game inflation in 1994-96 followed by deflation:
-Possible shortage in chips due to burning factory or something. IIRC that happened once around those years
-SNES cartridges typically were filled with 3rd-party chips to go around the SNES limitations, which might have contributed to higher prices, and cartridges were already expensive to begin with
-Maybe back in the days, games were not sold at US prices in Canada like they have been for the past 15 years or so. In 1994-96 the Canadian dollar was worth $0.70 USD. I heard that in USA games were quite expensive too, though.
But yeah $99.99 for a golf or fishing game was just ridiculous. When the N64 came out most of its games were $20 higher than the PS1 ($79.99 vs 59.99) except Gauntlet Legends which was $89.99 for N64 and $69.99 for PS1, but all $79.99 games were far less expensive than what we had in the 2nd half of the SNES era. Today most games launch at $59.99 though, so at least they're a bit easier to afford right from the start.
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I knew only one person who owned a SNES. He had a lot of games. Probably all second hand because the SNES was already obsolete in 2002 :P
Never owned any console at all. I grew up with fake mario games on my pc :( And those sucked.
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Wow this is crazy. I just looked into one of them.
I might not have been alive long in the 90s but I played a lot of those games since they were handed down to me from one of my dad's friends.
EDIT: I used to have an SNES, NES, Sega Genesis, and a PS1. Everything was handed down to me except for the PS1. Then one day I found out that All of my old games and consoles were donated to The Goodwill. :( That was a very sad day.
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I used to play donkey kong country over at a friends house. That was pretty much the ony game we (read he) played (, since I did not get to play very often :P)
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When I was 8 I got a NES near its end of life and got Mario, Tetris and Pac Man (the latter which was given to me from a family member), then got Zelda II in exchange of Pac Man. My NES broke and my mom got rid of the games and we got a SNES in 1994. I remember my mom buying me NHL Stanley Cup for $29.99 and Kirby Dream Course for $79.99 at the Consumers Distributing store and I was kinda surprised at how much she had to pay for Kirby when I knew the price later.
I got a few SNES games but usually the ones that were shorter, since Final Fantasy III was like $100+ and other RPGs were already rare. I often temporarily traded games with a friends so we can play more of them and often played some at his home, such as Metal Warriors, Super Metroid, Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Mana, etc. Good times :D
It was an huge mistake for me to sell all the games we had and the console for a N64, as an RPG fan, back in 1998, because almost no RPG ever came out on the 64 X.x (it had some great games like Zelda, Mario, etc, though). THe good thing, however, is that back in 2000, I got a new SNES back and because SNES games were still not rare back then, I managed to get many games for far cheaper than I originally sold them.
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Wow, I just noticed... the 1987 catalogue has compact disc players O.O. I thought those started being sold around 1992 or so. I never actually saw a CD in person until 1995. I remember that CDs were like $39.99 or so.
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/cds1987.png)
Also who the heck wants to play $124.99 for Action Max? >.<
Also it sucks because they didn't write down the calculator models, so I can't know which ones are what, although the top-right calc seems to be a TI-99 or something. Back then, prices seemed higher for calcs, although they didn't vary that much over time.
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/calcs1.png)(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/calcs2.png)
And the 30th anniversary logo is due to Consumers Distributing turning 30 years old that year, not TI. :P
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And how often did these cd players glistch? >.<
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I wonder lol. I am sure they were incredibly sensitive to shock, though, so one tiny vibration made the CD jump.
Given that cassette stereo systems were sometimes cheaper, I doubt many people bought CD players back then, though. Also, if a CD costed $39.99 over here in 1995, imagine how much it must have costed in 1987... even in 2007 CDs were expensive. When a new album came out it was $19.99 and after a year it went $24.99. Now you can buy almost every album for $14.99, even some power metal band imports.
Of course the currency exchange was way different back in the '90s and early 2000's, so maybe it was cheaper in USA, but back in the '80s the Canadian dollar was nowhere as low as it got in 2001. (it was around $0.85 USD in Early 1990, then started to decline all the way down to $0.62 until the Iraq war in 2003)
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Yeah, It's just insane how more epic and how cheaper technology gets over a short amount of time.
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For some reason I was surprised how much those games cost back then, I don't really knew what to expect, but still I thought it would be cheaper
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Tetris, pacman and pong etc. actually did cost something O.O
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Indeed, but again they were on consoles. Tetris costed something until like a few years ago when they somehow stopped releasing any new versions on new consoles. :P
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that *somehow* is probably because people started making tetris as a programming exercise :P
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Same with pong, pacman and breakout :P
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I don't think Pong is still copyrighted, though.
Also TI made a Tetris clone before for the Nspire but couldn't release it because they would have been in legal troubles.
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Tetris is copyrighted by EA now right?
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Also TI made a Tetris clone before for the Nspire but couldn't release it because they would have been in legal troubles.
That is pretty fail, if you look at all the tetris clones out there :P
Tetris is copyrighted by EA now right?
Isn't it Nintendo?
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If wikipedia is correct, there's a tetris holding that manages all the games. It licenses to developers to make the game for their platform, so if I understand correctly not nintendo, not ea are the legit owner of the trademark
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I think it's still copyrighted by the original company that made it or at least the person who did it (from Russia), but I could be wrong.
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IIRC the guy who created Tetris (Alexei Pajitnov) would be the guy who holds all the copyrights, but I think creating a Tetris-like (without the Tetris name) would be fine.
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It is. Tetris company is like apple. As soon as it looks, feels or sounds like tetris they sue it.
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That said, they have yet to sue for ZTetris, Ntris and ZTris, though. I guess maybe they don't care as long as you sell a Tetris clone for money :P (Kinda like Valve with Portal clones)
Also back on the expensive games topic, I read at many places that SNES retailed for $40-60 in USA unless they were Chrono Trigger and the like, while N64 games usually didn't go above $50-60. Is that true? If it's the case then the overly expensive game thing seen in the catalogs on the 1st page might have entirely been due to low canadian dollar (Back in the '90s, $1 CDN was worth $0.70 USD), but maybe somebody from USA who was old enough to remember might be able to confirm?
From this page (assuming that this is from USA), it might partially be right, although some games seemed more expensive, even when they were sports games. http://www.huguesjohnson.com/scans/ebspring93/EBSpring93_03_Genesis.jpg
More http://www.huguesjohnson.com/scans/ebspring93/
That is from 1993, though. From what I remember, the jump in SNES game prices happened around 1994-96.
EDIT: Lol there was Sonic 2 for the GB? O.O http://huguesjohnson.com/features/sears_catalog/wishbook-canada-1994-pg430_med.jpg