The Singularity is Near. It came out more than 2 years ago, but I've just started reading it. If you've mindfully noticed how technology keeps improving while lowering in price, then this is recommended reading. Video game systems are a good example. One may reasonably conclude that my example is not good, since the prices of game systems have gone up, but an XBox 360 (assuming it was possible to manufacture one) would have cost more than an F-15 if it had been released alongside the NES. So the prices have actually dropped by prodigious amounts.

Assume that a video game system is a tool, like a shovel. For many hundreds (possibly thousands) of years the shovel did not improve. One would use the same shovel throughout the entirety of their lives, possibly passing it on to their progeny (or apprehended by them). If the NES were like a shovel, then we'd still be using it, as would our progeny - and theirs, for many generations. Just in my lifetime, I've seen the invention of many new shovels, each one more powerful than the last - and vastly cheaper. Imagine for a moment how many times the computing power the Xbox 360 has over the NES, and then multiply that amount by the original cost of the NES.

F-15 fighter jets cost around $30,000,000 each. I don't know the processor speed of the XBox 360 or the NES, but if I assume the 360 does a gigaflop and the NES does a tenth of a megaflop, then the 360 has 10,000 times the computing power of the NES. I don't remember how much the NES cost when it first came out, but I'll guess $300. Since the 360 has 10,000 times the computing power of the NES, it would've cost $3,000,000, which is one order of magnitude below my estimate of $30,000,000.

Feel free to provide corrections.

Actually, the NES cost $200 at release, as did the SNES, as did the N64, and the Gamecube as well if I'm not mistaken. But the Wii's like $250 or something, right?

Yet the PSX launched at $300, as did the PS2, and I don't think I need to remind anyone of how much the PS3 cost at launch, and even now it's still $400. The PSP was $250.

Gameboy was $180, DS is still $150, and I think that's what the GBA used to go for as well.

I don't know about the original XBox, but the 360 started at $300 core, and $400 for the full package, but it has dropped in price considerably now.

So if anything, apart from Nintendo's handhelds, it seems things are getting more expensive.

Even if you take economic factors into account, the price of the NES way back when would correspond to about $400 today, so that would still be on average. So nope, they ain't getting any cheaper.

While I understand what you're saying, Amazingu, I think what Jodo is talking about is the amount of bang we're getting for our buck.  Yes, game systems are either staying about the same actual number in price each generation or getting more expensive, but the tech inside them is getting exponentially better.  How much is the processing power of a NES worth now?

This brings up something that I've thought about a lot when people are complaining about $60 games, which is sort of related.  Back in the day, we paid $60 or $70 for cartridges for the NES and SNES.  Now - when games are actually much more costly to actually produce - everyone whines and complains because the last couple gens were cheaper.  My greatest fear about gaming as a hobby in general is that everyone clamoring for flashy graphics without a willingness to pay for the increased development costs is going to drive all of the smaller companies to die out.  The last couple days have seen rumors of the loss of Free Radical and Factor 5 - whether that's true or not, I see lots and lots of studios closing their doors.  That would leave us with fewer, larger places.  I'm envisioning a few years down the road having nothing but EA, Activision, Square, Nintendo, MS, and Sony...

That's why I rented NES games, 3 for $5 and I'd have them all beaten in the 3 day rental period. 

Small developers are just publishing for different (cheaper) platforms like mobile phones and ipods these days, even though there's a merging of powers as far as CONSOLES are concerned. 

Small game makers won't die out, they just migrate to other platform and make Scrabbulous on social networks, and online casual games like pop cap stuff. 

There's some older lady coworkers at my job who are completely addicted to crappy shallow online games that barely have a purpose, but they still can't stop playing them!!  Online web games (not even counting MMORPGS) is where small dev games amass huge followings of everyone else who DOESN'T play on consoles, and those numbers seem to be larger by the day.

But don't you think we used to get more content per cart back in those days? To be honest I think as the generations have passed we've seen a decline in the actual gaming "content" that we actually pay for. I wouldn't have a problem if every game released was a LBP or Katamari Damacy (i.e. new content) but as it stands most companies are content to instead simply pass on development costs of jumping on the graphics bandwagon each year. I could really care less how many polys they're pushing; gimme something that's fun to play please.

This could just be grumpy-old-man syndrome that's been going around here these days (but I have been playing a lot of SNES and Gameboy games) .

Oh and as for the original topic: Kurzweil is a nutcase (he's the guy who thinks we'll all be robots at some point and is actively working on a way to "download" his brain IIRC) and read up on something called Moore's Law.

Yes, that's what interests me. Basically, how many NES systems would it take to produce the same graphics as the Xbox 360? Once you've figured out how many, you multiply that number by the original cost and that will give you the cost of the Xbox 360, relative to the cost of the NES back in the 1980s. My claim is that an Xbox 360 would have cost more than an F-15 fighter jet. I'm curious to see if anyone can confirm/deny that claim.

The book inspired me to create the topic which is about the lowering cost of technology. It made me question what current video game systems would have cost, had they been released alongside the NES. By mentioning the book, one can see why I'm thinking about this. (Anyone that's read the book would have similar questions.)

  P.S.

  Gordon Moore was referring to the second dimension when he predicted the doubling rate of transistors. We have not yet brought computing power into the third dimension. This is why they are called chips and not cubes.