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/

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



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

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.

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.

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

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.

And how often did these cd players glistch? >.<

Yeah, It's just insane how more epic and how cheaper technology gets over a short amount of time.

Tetris, pacman and pong etc. actually did cost something

that *somehow* is probably because people started making tetris as a programming exercise